Neon Cognogenesis Omega
by unknown user
Summary: An AU describing the eva characters in reference to a slightly different interpretation of the word Instrumentality. SR. Note: heavy on the tech and the Japanese. Ch12 up!
1. Chapter 1

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 01

--

**Be-beep be-beep be-beep**!

A sleep-logged Shinji covered his head with his pillow, in an attempt to shut out the cacophony that was currently assaulting his ears. After a few failed tries, he managed to slam his hand in the precise spot necessary for shutting off the damned machine. Precision was usually his strong point, but he knew that his skills had little to no effect while sleeping off a 30 hour debugging spree. Strangely, he continued his habit despite this. He wondered this to himself, whilst he groggily and slothfully shifted his legs off his bed and into his pale blue bedroom slippers. He barely managed a lazy yawn, stifling it halfheartedly (primarily with his hand, as if putting it in front of the opening would somehow lessen the need for oxygen instead of making him, say, choke to death on his own fist), and after a few moments of blinking, he stood up.

_Today is going to be my day_.

---

Misato waited (un)patiently by the green phone booth in the center of the city. _Tokyo-2_, her fingers seemed to drum, as if her one hand was typing on a strange ellipsoidal bit-paired keyboard instead of on the dingy black rubber steering wheel that at the very moment was slowing burning a festering hole in her other, more tightly-gripped hand. _Damn it! Why'd I have to be so damn early?_ She knew the answer. She was keeping up appearances. Her clothing alone proved it: she was currently clad in a tight black dress, with a high slit in one side. On top, dangling from her neck, was a pure white cross, more like a plus sign in bold Impact font than anything anyone could practically be hung from but nonetheless a pleasing shape. The story behind the shape was somewhat less pleasing, but she continued to wear it, trying to extinguish from her concious mind the nagging idea that perhaps she still loved him.

She noticed a presence beside her. She looked quickly to the open window, affirming the fact that there was a face.

"Misato-san desuyo ne?"

"Shinji-kun desuka?" The boy nodded slilently. "Get in."

The boy walked dilligently to the other side, unlocking the door by reaching through the crack in the window after he found it to be latched. "So how'd you like my invitation?"

Blue eyes smiled through carefully misplaced strands of dark brown hair. "It was... Interesting." Although he kept a straight face, his eyes continued to beam, and the occasional and subtle involutary ticking of some deeply-buried facial muscles hinted towards the supressed inclination to burst into a hearty and jovial laugh (though whether this somewhat scrawny and lanky, feminine-looking teen with such elegance and politesse in his style was actually capable of just a thing imposed a question in of itself). Ignoring this, the purple-haired woman answered slyly.

"I knew you'd appricate it." She grinned mischeviously.

Shinji looked her in the eyes with a knowing glance, and then nodded slightly, saying in an explanitory and slightly condisending tone (as one would speak to a child just old enough to understand the reason wrongs are wrong) "But you know, if I were you I wouldn't use that method with anyone else. It might send the wrong message."

Internally furious, she decided to lead him on. "What kind of message do you think I wanted to send?" She saw him blush and squirm in his eyes, although his face never changed except for a slight, untelling frown. "Come on, I know you have it printed out on your bedroom wall..."

"Actually, my point was primarily that, due to its explicitness, it might be tagged as spam by potential employees." He intentionally left out the "male" before employees, largely unaware of the range of his new employer's "functions", and in lack of proper and complete documentation, aware that it is safer not to assume and instead leave out all unnecessary parameters. "I very nearly did so, until I saw the company name. You're not selling that stuff, are you?"

She was ready to see the payoff of her coyness. "Why? Are you in the market?" She emphasized "the market" and syncronized it with a double eyebrow raise.

She did not have the desired effect. "No. In fact..."

"In fact?"

"N-nothing. It was just-- nothing." He blushed slightly, a tinge of bright pinky red accenting his cheeks irregularly.

"Come on, you can tell me..."

His blush turned scarlet, and his body stiffened. "It-- it was just a passing whim. Nothing to be-- concerned about." He kept looking straight ahead, his shoulders raised slightly in defiance with his muscle tension.

Convinced that she was getting somewhere, Misato leaned forward, saying softly, "come on." She chuckled inside, but part of her wondered if she really had to be so cruel.

"It's just that... I had the passing thought that I had-- met the girl I love... today." With the "today", he let his breath out quickly, so that it was mangled into more breath than phonome.

"Oh." She was rather dissapointed. What a boring guy. What a boring, romantic, sensitive guy. _I guess he isn't all that bad, when you come to think about it..._ "It didn't happen to be me, did it?"

His body relaxed, and he let out (ironically enough) a hearty, jovial laugh. It sounded like he had kept it in for years.

"I guess that's a no then."

"I met her in the library. I was checking it out since I happened to get into town early and figured you wouldn't get here until later. She had the strangest colour hair..."

The pause became extended and awkward, and then Shinji started again, abruptly asking the most obvious question. "Why aren't we moving?"

"Oh. Well, I was dropping off a friend who needed to do a few errands around here. She's your new co-worker, by the way. Oh! There she is. Rei!"

Shinji turned to look as a girl about his age with short, cropped blue hair and thick square reading glasses stared startledly at him and dropped the heavy pile of books she was carrying.

"It's you!"

--

Ok, first chapter done. You might notice that it cuts off a little abruptly. That's because it's 11:51pm and I have school tomorrow. Anyway, I hope you all will review (and maybe read the next chapter). I'd love to hear your comments on this (rather strange) story thus far.

Oh, and thanks to the blue-haired girl (the real one) who inspired (and will probably continue to inspire) the Rei character and this story in general. You know who you are. Yes, you. Thank you. Also, thanks to Red Bull, xsublim, pwim, the Pi R Squared music video, and school vacation, for making this whole state of mind possible. You accelerate me.


	2. Chapter 2

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 02

Disclaimer:  
I do not own Eva. If I did, I would own Rei. And... well... let's just say I have a rather striking curiousity, and something of a mild fetish for blue hair... :drools:

--

Shinji looked around on the dusty bottom shelf, kneeling to get a better look at the bindings. He was about five eighths of the way along the section, on the side marked "Computer: UNIX". He was quite engrossed in the titles of these books, as there was no such section in the library where he lived. _It must be because NervSoft is here..._ Accordingly, he had decided to read the title of every book in the section, and was very nearly two thirds done. He hummed as he read, a tune he had heard in the train on the way here.

'ISO/IEC 9945-1 ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1 second edition: Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX (R) ) -- Part 1: System Application Program Interface (API) C Language'. It was the last book on the shelf he stood up slowly, waiting for the rush of lightheadedness to stop. His vision blurred and then blacked, and he attempted to steady himself on the shelf. He vaguely felt the fuzzily tactile pressure of another presence at his side.

"Oh!" Rei, who had been reading the titles from the opposite direction, absently and automatically veered back from the object she was bumping into. The large stack of books she had been holding rammed into the young man's hand due to the irregular movement, causing both an automatic release of grip on Shinji's part, and a compensation on Rei's, causing them both to fall down.

'Shit' Shinji thought, realizing that he was once again on the ground. 'I must have fallen after all.' His eyes began to see again as the blood rushed back into his brain, and he noticed that his face seemed to be on top of a strangely shaped, moist light-tan object. He lifted his head slightly to see what it was.

"Aa! Gomen!" He rocketed himself off the girl, who sat quickly up, trying to hide her persistent blush with the large yellow legal pad she happened to be carrying. "Uh... Are you okay?" She nodded silently. As she did so, he noticed a small stray lock of azure hair on her head swaying in the light, zephyric atmosphere-controlled currents. He looked at her deep scarlet eyes, partially hid behind thick, bulky square glasses, their black plastic rims seated at a skewed angle on the edge of her small nose. _She's beautiful..._ Her eyes widened a bit under his intensely affectual gaze. "Aa! Gomen!" He looked away quickly and began to pick up the books she dropped.

'Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics Via Bayesian Statistics and Field Programmable Gate Arrays : Design to Implementation'. _Hrm... Another hacker? _He wondered to himself, pausing slightly before returning to his book restacking. _All these are computer books... and pretty advanced, too._ There was a mutual pause as his hand, reaching for a bright pink reference manual (what is called in the biz a "rainbow book"), met soft pale flesh. "Aa-- Gomen!" they said simultaneously, as they both withdrew their hands. Shinji waited for a signal as to whether the girl would grab the book, but one was not given, so both of them sat for a few moments staring at it, waiting for the other to pick it up. Finally, Shinji grabbed it quickly and put it on the top of the stack.

"Ano..." She was still staring at the place the book had been, holding her hand to her chest and pinning it with the other. "Ano..." he repeated.

She looked up suddenly. "I... uh... I see that you like computer books."

She looked at the stack, then looked back at his face. "Hai."

"Uh... Do you... I mean..." The girl was already gathering up her stack. "Is it for..." She stood up suddenly, and he followed her lead. "Do you do it for..." The weight of the stack started pushing her backwards again, and Shinji blitzed over, catching her mid-fall. Comfort. "Is it for work, or for pleasure?"

She wondered why she wasn't still falling. A gentle pressure made itself known, softly yet firmly bracing her middle back and upper thigh. Comfort. She felt the warm, satiny presence of safety. A shiver ran down her spine, convulsing her nerves and twitching the muscles between her petite shoulders. The nagging question, now finished but incomplete through numerous iterations. She was in his arms. "Ah..." She composed herself into her most businesslike of masks, her voice now a cold, harsh echo of her inner mind. "A little of both."

For the first time, he noticed that his pulse was accelerating, pounding in his head like a base loop at 350 decibels. His brain froze, his thoughts becoming static. Flowers. Waves on a beach. A cloudless sky, crashed ashore.

She cleared her throat lightly, and he complied. They stood a few feet away from one another, straining for a few moments to remember the events of a few seconds before, and trying to predict the events of a few seconds hence.

_Smells nice..._

---

"When are you two going to stop staring at each other? It's creeping me out a bit." Both faces shot away, flushed in their private view, eyes flicking back to see the others' response.

"Now that's better. I was originally going to have Rei here brief you, but I now see that that's probably impossible. Plus, we're almost to the head office, and we have some extra info packets lying around somewhere in my cube I think."

The young man turned, bold blue eyes facing his new superior. "Are you taking me to see my father?"

"Yeah, eventually. Why, do you two not get along?" He nodded slightly. "Same with me."

Rei looked absentmindedly out the window. "Don't worry about her, though."

"Why's that?"

Red eyes became visible, and a pale blue mass of hair rotated, angling slightly forward from the boy's direction. "I don't have a father. Not that I know of, at least."

Waterfalls of purple hair repeated the same transition. Misato stated, matter-of-factly, "Rei is an orphan. She was adopted by your father when she was young. She's been around NervSoft all her life, haven't you Rei?" The younger girl nodded.

The blue Renault entered a kind of dark tunnel, then made a sudden stop, doors closing behind it. The circular platform below it rose, twisted a sharp left, and doors opened in front, revealing a large metal container which obviously was meant as a parking space. Worn rubber tires rumbled on the steel grating, and the car gently rocked its way into the spot.

"You've got a lot to learn, starting on this new job. A lot to unlearn, too." She shut the door after her, and the others followed her example.

"For example, that... " She cleared her throat a bit. "That crash of the net... You know, the one a few years back."

Shinji nodded. "Yeah. That virus broke half my ICE permanently. Couldn't find a trace of it afterwards, though..." His brow furrowed itself into a small frown.

"Well, it wasn't actually a virus... At least not in the sense you're used to. We call it the Second Impact."

The boy looked up. Rei watched with a cold sense of amusement. She had seen people being briefed many a time, and it was always quite entertaining.

"The planet is made up of two realms. This you should have learned in school."

"Yes, the Real World and the Net World."

"Close. It is made of the Biosphere and the Noosphere. Both of these existed long before the Net."

"I've heard those terms, but I'm not sure I follow."

Rei piped in, scarlet eyes showing rare compassion. She wanted to help. "The Biosphere is the physical world, what you learned of as the 'Real World'. The Noosphere is the world of ideas, the land of memes, the mindspace of the Jungian 'Collective Subconcious'."

"Oh, I see. Sort of like the Net, but not restricted to electronic modes of communication. The network made of human relationships, and the ideas communicated between them." There was a pause, and they could hear the hum of the cylindrical elevator echoing in the shaft. "Go on."

Rei spoke again. "And you are aware of the Gaianistic theories?"

"Yes. When evolving entities are grouped together in the same environment, they have no choice but to evolve in such a way that the benefit is mutual. Coevolution. The complex interrelations between evolving organisms, their environment, and each other, is known as Gaia... Essentially a force that seems to 'look out for' all of the environment's inhabitants, seeming to evolve itself to meet the needs of its component parts."

"Well, memes are evolving entities too. Therefore, there is a Gaia in the Noosphere as well, and it is connected to the physical Gaia through sentient beings such as ourselves."

The older woman zoned out, focusing her attention on a hangnail she seemed to have aqquired on the trip here.

"The second impact was the Noosphere's Gaia gaining the level of conciousness necessary for the presence of sentient emotion. The 'virus' was its pathos."

There was a long silence, as the new trainee fought to comprehend these unfamiliar ideas.

Finally, he spoke. "I understand."

Misato sighed to herself. _I suppose she did brief him, after all._ She looked at her nail again, smooth now, with a small droplet of blood oozing out of the lower left corner of her cuticle. _What a relief._

---

Author's Notes:  
Yeah... I revealed a little bit of plot in this chapter... Just enough so you can vaguely understand what's going to be happening later on. The 'viruses' are the Angels, and you'll eventually understand why. I have the ending and the whole backstory surrounding the First, Second, and Third impacts planned out now. I'd just like to let you know first off, that all of my explanations are rather strictly based upon real science (or at least, really good pseudoscience) and the beliefs of real scholars, even on the historical stuff (not including the stuff that happens between now and when the story is set). Actually, taking into account this backstory, the "Instrumentality" seems to be starting right now... I suppose this story is my way of educating people about it. If you don't believe me, then fine; just enjoy the story ;-). Oh yeah, and in case you didn't notice, both Shinji and Rei are older (about 18 I'd say), and much more educated. I figured, since they're both studious and pretty bright to begin with (cognatively, if not emotionally; i.e. high IQ, low EQ), so they'll probably use lots of big words and seem really precocious at 18 if they find what they love to do. Also, next chapter, you'll be finding out exactly what their jobs will be. Fun :-D.

I'd like to thank Red Bull, Mountain Dew, jelly donuts, Snow Crash by Neal Stevenson (for the inspiration of the backstory), Neuromancer by William Gibson (for a lot of the writing style bits I used in this chapter), Berlin's song "Like Flames" and a good number of Son of Rust songs (for inspiration for later chapters), and Nine Inch Nails's song Every Day Is Exactly the Same (for playing in my head in a continuous loop whilst writing this chapter). You accelerate me.


	3. Chapter 3

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 3

"Suge--..." The young man's blue eyes brightened with excitement at the sight. Racks and racks of hardware, huge boa-constrictor cables, massive holographic screens, and enough small blinking lights to make a twinkling rainbow Milky Way of LEDs had the room been just a bit darker.

"We call it the MAGI system." He turned to see a blonde older woman with an electronic clipboard. Rei looked on not-at-all disapprovingly, but instead as if she was supervising very boring factory work, done entirely with robots. In fact, she was actually trying to figure out anagrams for everything that had been said. _Ew... 'tis all that CGIsys emm_. Needless to say, lots of abbrivations and even more frustration came from this practice, but she was bored as hell and probably knew less in the long run than the fairhaired woman about the setup, as she was only the barrier coder. Well, not quite JUST that...

The woman continued, a small dark mole above her lip syncronizing its movements to her speech (as well it should). "The MAGI system is a beowulf of beowulfs, one might say. That is to say, it is a supercomputer made out of a distributed network of other supercomputers, each of which is in turn made of a distributed network of nodes. It is networked internally by SBus-32 and fiber Infiniband-12, with a large amount of redundancy. Each of the supercomputer 'nodes' contains 4096 multiprocessor multicore AMD Opteron systems with SMP support and Long Mode. Each runs Accelix, a hack of the Linux distribution Lunar. The network topography mimics the human brain to some degree, and in other ways, human psychology. There are two network/processing layers: the direct layer, which works with standard IPv6 protocols such as ssh and http, and the neural layer, which transfers data between the nodes' neural nets."

"Un." Brown hair bobbed interestedly over a similarly moving head. He was having fun, despite the woman's strict manner.

"You may be wondering what this has to do with your job." The blonde woman looked at him with faux-honest eyes.

"Un." He wasn't. "What IS my job description, anyway?" He managed to show some interest in his purpose in this arrangement between long microsleep glances at rows of neat circuitry. 'Hacking -- the grimy, sprawling hacks of youth!' His pathos quoted TMRC canon while his ego pretended to listen eagerly.

"You have heard of the Gaianistic theories, no?" A small mole moved while lips licked themselves in preparation for a lengthy explaination.

A small voice cleared itself from diagonally across the room. Blue hair bobbed in the slight breeze of the Electronic Brain's air conditioning system. "He has already been briefed. You may get directly to the point."

The doctor briefly wondered if the young albino had intended hurt in her statement, however quickly dismissed it -- she was aware of the girl's operating perameters, and emotion was not one of them.

Blue eyes below a mop of brown hair staired into eyes of crimson in awe.

"Your job description is this. You have heard of the virus whose birth was the awakening of the Earth Brain. There are more coming. You shall be the security of the world's networks, connecting your brain directly to our custom Cyberspace decks to battle the viruses -- the Angels -- on their own level of abstraction." The doctor went on to gloat, "This level of abstraction was a protocol surmised by the MAGI system, based upon the probability readings of a number of quantum random number generators spread across the world and already active at the time of the first Angel attack, programmed to statistically analyze relations with world events and mentality surmised from internet and telephone communications." Ritsuko declined to add 'Programming _I_ did', if only in the name of modesty. "Your decks are called the Evangelions, or Evas for short. I only suggest---".

She was interrupted by a flailing of lights and sirens from different parts of the facility. "Status check?"

The young Second Liutenant called Maya Ibuki responded, tapping her screen. "Distributed probability indicators show an Angel coming towards the MAGI network. The code is blue -- it's liquid, evolving. We need to do something."

"Captain Katsuragi, we await your orders." The blonde doctor looked her in the eye to make her note the seriousness of the situation.

"Rei -- to Unix 0! Shinji is not yet trained, so he'll be on standby."

The porcelain-skinned girl gave one last, sad look at the boy, grim in her determination to survive, but aware of the dangers.

She would fight. For him.

--

So how'd you like this? Sorry it's been so long since I updated -- The blue haired girl and I had a bit of a falling out, and then when I became friends with her again, she no longer had blue hair, and therefore no longer reminded me so much of Rei (though her hair is cute now -- shorter, which is my preference anyway, but for some reason blue hair really gets me -- maybe it's a fetish.) Anyway, it's been a long hard wierd journey, and the road less traveled by, in its tortuous route, has finally brought me back to this fic, which, I believe, is where I need to be right now. Expect some action in the next chapter. And some Shinji ass-kicking. How you interpret that is up to you.


	4. Chapter 4

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 4

Disclaimer:  
I do not own eva. If I did, I would own Shinji. By which I mean, I would Pwn Shinji ;-). I do, however, own the design of the MAGI in this story, as well as the SBus NIC standards, Accelix, Accela Labs, and the concept of constructing Croquet spaces out of distributed quantum probability dissonance statistics. Oh, and the Infornography treatment -- all me ;-).

---

"Rei, the angel is located in the delta sector of MemeSpace. I'm constructing a portal now." The lights blinked quickly and colourful patterns of light washed over the wall.

"Ryokai. Portal rezzed, awaiting command to enter the space." Rei was cut off from view, sitting in an egg-shaped capsule on a raised circular platform in the middle of the room. Thick cables wrapped themselves around a pipe that sprung from the center of the platform, and then snaked around the cieling, splitting into smaller cables and connecting to various pieces of equipment.

The woman with purple hair spoke. "Wait until the angel is in visual range of the portal. We don't want an ambush."

"No." Ritsuko's tone of voice was harsh. "There's no garuntee that the angel will approach visual range. Go in now."

"But..." Misato was cut off.

"Ryokai. Entering now." There was a short pause, and the holographic screen popped up a window representing the space. There was nothing but a blank grid. "Nothing on visual. He's not here."

Misato let out an audible sigh as the wrinkles on her forhead uncreased.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Rei let out a shriek that drew everyone's eyes to the capsule.

Ritsuko looked to the view screen. "Oh my god... What is that thing?" All eyes turned to the ameboa-like blob that was enclosing on the viewscreen. "Rei! Put up a type 666 firewall, quick!"

Maya turned from her console. "Doctor, her psychograph's going nuts. There isn't time for a firewall, we need to pull her out before her meme is erased."

"Do it, quickly!"

Misato felt pretty useless, being the tactician and not having any way to help.

Maya turned back to the doctor. "Her console has been compromised, the disconnect has been disabled! I'm putting up a quick firewall now, but it's a kluge and won't last."

"We need to get her out of there. Shinji, I know this is very unfair, but we need to save her." Misato looked with pleading eyes.

"Ok, I'll do it. Just tell me what I need to do." Shinji winced as he heard another blood-curdling scream coming from the pod.

"Go in the pod marked Unix 1 and we'll instruct you from there."

Shinji ran to the pod and sat at the console. The door closed behind him and the screen and keyboard lit up. A wireframe cap with small nubs around its perimeter attached itself to his head, and on his screen he saw a rectangle like a flat screen television with small icons surrounding it. Ritsuko's voice came over the intercom.

"You see that rectangle?" She gave him no time to agree. "That is a portal. This is essentially a modified Croquet system set to take input from brain signals. Think of moving in a direction and you go in that direction. Now you should see something on the other side of the portal." He saw a large humanoid figure being consumed by a giant ameboa -- definitely classified as 'something'. "When you think it's safe, go through the portal and apply your AT field."

He took a step forward and then stopped. "How do I apply an AT field?"

"Think of something you want to protect."

_Something I want to protect..._ He looked back at the portal and regained his confidence. _I want to protect her. No, I **will** protect her._ He stepped into the portal and a translucent cube expanded around him. _Easy._

"Now, move towards Rei's avatar." He moved closer, and the ameboa twitched and then shrank back. He moved close enough that his AT field was enveloping Rei's avatar, driving the angel back far enough that it couldn't hurt her.

Maya's voice came over the intercom. "Withdraw signal accepted. Derezzing." Rei's avatar faded out of existence.

"Is she going to be ok?"

"We don't know yet. She suffered some level of memetic damage, but we will do all we can to fix her." This was all Shinji had to hear.

_Now, it's time for some fragging..._ Shinji had a strange confidence in his abilities, magnified, he thought, by the quickness with which he mastered the system and the fact that he may have just saved the life of the girl he had, for better or for worse, developed a massive crush on. In fact, the main reason was the massive amount of status and instructional information he was being fed by the subliminal messages on his screen.

The ameboa was approaching him cautiously, slowly forming tendrils to reach towards him, and then retracting them back. Suddenly, it jumped towards him. _This must be the move he used on Rei._ Shinji dodged, and then shot his AT field at the ameboa-like angel in a burst, channeling all his frustration and rage into this intuitive action. A piece of the angel fell off and disintegrated, revealing a small red ball.

"Shinji! The core! That's the place where the data is stored!"

But the angel had rematerialized some flesh over the core, and readied itself for another attack. Shinji was ready, though, and shot it in the air, revealing the core. _This is just like Doom. Don't shoot where it is, shoot where it's gonna be._ He aimed his energy towards a point in the angel's trajectory path for a fraction of a second in the future, and shot.

_Right on target._ The ameboa angel glowed a bright pink and then exploded into a million shimmering fragments.

-

Shinji stood in front of the door to a hospital room, readying himself to knock. The light was a bright blinding blue-white that faded the surroundings into a dead sterility.

"Come in."

Shinji entered to see Rei lying on a white bed in a blue hospital gown, covers around her waist. He couldn't help but chuckle mentally at the absurd colour scheme.

"I'm glad to see you're ok. I was worried..." He frowned slightly.

"Worried? About me?" She had the look of a rabbit whose carrot had just become a watermelon. _No one has ever worried about me. But then again, he doesn't know what I am..._ She shook her head. _That must be it._ "I was worried about you too... I... I put you in danger... I am sorry."

"Don't be sorry. You couldn't help your situation. And anyway, it's my job..." Shinji stopped himself. _Did that sound as cold as I thought it did?_ He hurried to finish up. "Anyway, I'm glad you're ok."

Rei's confusion was now cleared up. _It's his job to be worried about me, that's all._ She went back to thinking of other things, and stared blankly out the window.

Shinji, taking this as his cue to leave, did so with the knowledge that he had through a slip of his tounge lost his chance. _Well, at least she's ok. I guess that's all that matters in the long run._ Inside, however, he was already lamenting his percieved loss.

--

Ok, I **finally** got back to this fic. Thank god. A bunch of people reviewed, and I thank them for that. Just a note, though -- if you're not up for technical language, this fic probably isn't for you. Then again, if that's the case, what are you doing watching evangelion? ;-)

Anyway, this chapter looks to me like it's a little longer than my others. Cool. I hope you guys enjoy it. Either way, please review. I put a lot of time into this chapter, and it's the output of almost a year's worth of thinking about how to do this fic.

I will try to get the next chapter out soon. I can't promise anything though; I am a busy man XD.

I'd like to thank Red Bull, the "Refrain of Evangelion" soundtrack, the Croquet project, Second Life, xsublim, and Peter Russel. You accelerate me.

I'd also like to yell at XOrg7. It takes forever to install, and I can't open any X apps while doing it because I had to remove version 6 beforehand. You, my friend, do **not** accelerate me.


	5. Chapter 5

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own evangelion. I do, however, own a few jelly donuts. And no, you may not take them. That's final.

--

The morning was brisk and early, and the walk to the Konbini (a **Simpson's**-themed one on the corner, labeled **KUIKI MAATU** in large bold katakana) was short. There was a damp chill in the air, the likes of which can only be found at around 5AM, before the sun rises but just about the time the atmosphere is reluctantly warming up after its cold nocturnal slumber. It was quiet at this time of day, with everyone sleeping but fitness-minded joggers, cram-school rounin, and the occasional overworked sarariman. The boy woke up at this time as a matter of habit -- though most of the time he was up already from the previous day.

As he stood in front of the convenience store, something struck him about the name on the sign. The transliteration was wrong. _Shouldn't it be **MAATO**?_ The choice of syllables reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Deeming this train of thought as futile, he ignored it and entered. Standing beside the doorway as to not block others (of whom there were likely none -- simply another matter of habit), he quickly scanned the aisles, and finding what he was looking for, made a bee-line to the energy drinks. Picking up a doublesized **Red Bull**, he made a slight detour to the magazine section, grabbed his daily fix of **Crypto-Families**, and went to the counter to pay.

Surprisingly, when he got there he was behind someone. He froze as he saw a stray lock of hair poking out from the side of her wool cap. _Blue._ He speedily averted his eyes, and caught sight of the items on the counter. _**5 Hour Energy**... And **Expert Sudoku**..._ His psyche preoccupied by the presence in front of him, a part of him absently pondered this new discovery. _Hmm... Perhaps I **do** love her after all..._. He was startled by crimson eyes coming to meet his own azure.

"Hello, Ikari-kun."

"... Oh! Hello, Re--uh, I mean, Ayanami-kun." There was an awkward pause, during which prying red eyes seemed to shoot omniscopic odin-bird laserbeams straight through him. He tried to break the tension. "H-how are you?"

The eyes restrained their piercing intensity with a glimmer of dissapointment, and then looked away shyly. "Nothing to report."

Shinji, having long ago memorized the protocol by which eye contact conveys social cues in call-response behavior, waited for a continuation. After approximately fifteen seconds, he realized that the girl was simply staring at a random point in space, so, putting on a costume of false confidence, he carefully initiated a new line of conversation. "I see you like puzzles."

She stared at him again, this time with slightly less intensity. That, or he was handling it better. Probably both. After approximately 12.7 seconds, she had decided that taking into account the vertex of surrounding probability interactions, she was better off answering this question rather than doing the habitual and ignoring everything he said that she deemed "off-topic".

"Yes."

Shinji didn't know what to make of this girl. The first time they met, there had been obvious chemistry. Now it seemed like she hated him. _Perhaps there **was** memetic damage, and it changed the part of her that liked me?_ But his wounded self-esteem wouldn't settle. _No, she never liked me in the first place. I've been deluding myself. I'm worthless._

Rei watched the boy's face contort itself from an outgoing smile to a series of subtle, yet noticable signals of pain, each muscle twitch shedding the mask he built for himself, fragmenting piece by piece. _I... hurt him?_

He was shocked out of his infinite recusion of self-hatred by a perception of movement. _Her face..._ He quickly regained his mask and made a hurried "Aa--gomen!"

The girl jumped at his animated reaction, then, realizing its nature, made a mental giggle. This was the first time she had realized that people could be intimately affected by such small and subtle things as eye contact, terse answers, and slight twitches of the facial muscles. Still, for the first time in ages, she smiled.

_Kireiiiii..._

--

**Russel-Kay-Nelson University** was a squat grey building made entirely out of concrete, situated in the middle of the urban wasteland of Tokyo-3, between the konbini and a sushi bar named _Shougi-a-Gou-Gou_ (which featured a unique combination of amazing magurou (tuna sushi) and an oxygen bar with two-player holographic versions of classic strategy board games). **RKNU** (as it was called) was funded exclusively by NervSoft, and taught the subjects of Linguistics, Sumerian Mythology, Computer Science, Game Theory, Descrete Mathematics, Statistics, Pattern Analysis, Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Sumerian Language, Complexity Science, and Cooking. It also happened to have the top university competitive chess team in the nation.

Taking his first class there, Shinji was quickly awash with information which he had to basis for categorizing. Doing his normal routine, he kept it in his brain's miscellaneous storage folder, which was already awash with information that defied categorization similarly. He was relieved at the end when they announced they would be doing a "brain dump", although he didn't know exactly what they meant.

The professor pressed a button on his desk and every seat popped up a screen in front of it. Shinji raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"What is it exactly that you mean by 'brain dump'?" The whole class was looking at him in astonishment.

"Oh, you're the new guy? The brain dump procedure is a segment of the infornography treatment, a method for improving brain function and plasticity. This specific segment is a way of associating information mnemonically at a high speed by flashing subliminal images in sync with sped up music, which when played at a regular speed will recall the associations."

Shinji felt rather out of place, as he usually was the one in his area who was implementing all the new technologies, and knew the details of all the others before anyone else. _Oh well. I'll get used to it._ Quickly, he glanced subconciously toward Rei, who was sitting at her terminal looking studious, before sitting back in the seat and letting the data wash over him like a warm summer rain.

_The land Martu, having all that is necessary..._

--

Well, there goes another chapter. I put more plot in here, and more tech. I invented the infornography treatment btw -- I use it every day. If you want more info about it, message me. I've got a doc on it I wrote somewhere, which I can send.

By the way, you may be wondering about all these loose ends I dropped in this chapter. Or you may not have noticed. Anyway, they will all be tied up eventually. This chapter was actually quite good for background and setting up some basic structures that will be used later.

Anyway, please review. I will try to get another chapter up soon, I promise! After all, I **did** release the last one only about eight hours ago.

On that note, I wish you all a happy new year. Thank you all for your support. You accelerate me.


	6. Chapter 6

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 06

**from** disclaimers **import** standardDisclaimer  
print(str(standardDisclaimer))

A/N:  
This chapter is going to introduce some big plot elements, but in the beginning it will seem very strange and OOC. Don't worry, stuff will be explained. Also, it will probably seem rather lime-ish until the actual plot is understood. Just so you know.

**Legend:**  
"**_Sumerian dialogue_**"  
"_Japanese dialogue_"  
(_English translation_)  
"Dialogue"  
_Thoughts_

--

It was morning, and Shinji and Rei once again found themselves together at the Quickie Mart.

"So..." Shinji weakly attempted conversation with the girl in line in front of him, not sure whether the previous day she had been laughing at him or with him. He paused as if trying to think of what to say, but in fact he had abandoned that pursuit almost immediately, and instead took up examining Rei's choice of purchases. _5Hour Energy and Sudoku... Same as yesterday._ Glancing down at his own soon-to-be morning inventory (a Red Bull and an issue of Crypto Families), he noted a similar pattern with himself.

Belatedly, the girl turned. She stared at the boy, waiting for him to look up and acknowledge her attention. A few moments later, he did. "Accompany me. Post-purchase. Outdoors."

The boy took a few moments to put this together, and then nodded. A wisp of stray blue locks quavered in the breeze, before hiding behind a closing door and the jingle of a small bell.

Shinji, purchases in hand, opened the door to find the girl leaning against the brick wall of the University, an empty whiteout-bottle of Energy whose contents, now drained, will give the dangling hand now holding it flush to the wall five hours of 'XTreme Performance Boost'. The other hand fished a large blue segmented pillbox from its respective pocket, blindly located the correct day (possibly by the braille on the cover), and emptied it, revealing a large sample of a variety of pills in intriguing shapes and colours. She popped them all in her mouth, dry-gulped them loudly, and turned to look into blue eyes.

"What were all those pills?" He was curious, as many of them he had never seen before, and none of them looked prescription.

"5000 milligrams of Taurine, 500 milligrams of Niacin, 500 milligrams of vitamins B6 and B12, 1000 milligrams of each of the following: guarana root extract, milk thistle extract, ginko baloba extract, green tea extract, roobios extract, L-Cartenine, D-Ribose, two 180-milligram tablets of caffine (no-doz), 5500 milligrams of omega-3 oils, 200 milligrams of kavakava root and eccinacia extract respectively, and an amino acid blend." She said this matter-of-factly, as if she were reading off the back of a can of turbo-charged Monster Energy XXL stolen from the secret unofficial Monster Energy volunteer research labs located in the 13th circle of hell, home of 'the Energy Drink That Can Kill You And Reanimate Your Corpse At The Same Time'.

"... Why?" The boy was confused, and actually rather worried, as all of those numbers seemed like WAY too much.

"Because I was instructed to."

_By whom?_ He kept silent, trying not to be rude. "What is the intended purpose for that cocktail?"

She was silent for a moment, formulating a response. Suddenly, she looked up at him and quickly answered. "I do not know for sure, as I have never asked. However, from the chemicals involved, it seems as though it serves to improve brain function."

He thought about this for a moment. "Does it work?"

She crinkled her brow in ponderance, then responded. "I do not know. I have been taking these since I was a small child, and before that, I had the same chemicals injected hypodermically."

_Who would do that?_ But he knew the answer. _My father._ He knew, however, that his father would seldom do something that extreme without first being sure that it would be effective. "Where can I buy some of those pills?"

-

Shinji and Rei had been called out of school that day to do syncro testing, which Ritsuko described as "a test of how well your brain works with our neuroreceptor system". Shinji had already more or less proven himself in battle, so he was more worried about the quiz ritsuko was going to give beforehand on his belated formal training. Shinji watched Rei speak to Ritsuko on the bridge (a row of desks and consoles near the holographic screen in the pit), from his place standing in front of his pod, Evangelion Unix 1. Rei finished her conversation, and quickly made her way across the catwalk to her respective Eva.

"You know, there isn't going to be any syncro testing until after my training quiz, so you don't have to stay in your pod."

Rei, who had been in the position to crouch into her pod, looked to him and stood up slightly. "I wish to observe."

Feeling slightly more confident, he decided to ask her a question. "How come I don't see my father around?"

As she made her way into the pod, she answered him. "He is on a business trip in Germany. He shall return in a fortnight." Just as she finished, the pod door slid shut, sealing her in. He turned to his respective Unix and did the same.

.

"Shinji, are you ready?" Doctor Akagi's voice echoed slightly over the distortion of the intercom and the soundproof, egg-shaped walls of the pod.

"Yeah."

"Maya, load test simulation space 00."

Maya's voice was slightly staticy. "_Ryokai_" (_Roger_)

Shinji saw a portal open up before him, and he readied his fingers on the weapon function keys and his right hand on the helper joystick. "Portal open confirmed, awaiting command to enter." He hoped to follow the protocol completely.

"Go ahead sweetie." There was a giggle enveloped in white noise.

"Maya--!" Ritsuko halfheartedly reprimanded the girl.

"_Ryokai_(_Roger_), entering now."

He entered the portal with mock caution, and looked around. He spotted a blob coming towards him, which he shot down with an XOR attack. Another immediately came from behind him, but, being a long time gamer, he was able to destroy it quickly. _This is too easy. The AI is really predictable -- it's just a follow and attack._ He shot down three simultaneously with XOR, AND, and NOR. _This is not at all like the real thing._ He shot a blob in midair with a STZ attack and it froze in particulate, Ritsuko's voice coming through the intercom.

"Good job, Shinji. That finishes the sections you've learned thus far, aside from the Squeak programming, which you'll take a written test on later. We took less time than expected, so after the syncro test you two will probably have time to go back to school and attend the last class or two of the day." Shinji was not looking forward to that, as he had been having trouble adapting to the new college, whose teaching methods were rather unconventional. "Maya, dematerialize that space and start the syncro test."

"_Hai_ (_Yes sir_)."

The screen in front of him went black, all except for a single white crosshair in the middle. White noise played through the speakers. He did as he was trained to do in such a test, and stared at the crosshairs, clearing his mind of thoughts.

Suddenly, the angel alarm rang.

"Maya, status check!"

"An angel located in sector 335 comma 227 comma 127 of memespace, pattern blue. The code is delta epsilon omega zero zero alpha."

Misato's voice took charge in the proceedings. "Stop the syncro test. We need to confront that angel!"

A male voice came from the static of the bridge. "Stopping syncro test." The crosshairs dissapeared, replaced with the familiar grid floor tiling in blank 3d space. "Stopped."

"Open a relative link portal to that sector's space. Shinji, Rei, approach carefully."

Two voices came in unison. "_Ryokai._"

The portal appeared in front of them. Shinji could only just barely see the grid lines, for all the fog that lay inside. "Portal res confirmed. Requesting command to enter cautiously." Shinji meant to do just that, peering into the thickening fog apprehensively.

"Rei here. Permission to do the same."

"Both of you, permission granted."

Shinji's and Rei's respective avatars entered the dense fog circumspectively. "Visual not confirmed. The fog's so thick I can't even see the grid. This is a setup I think." Shinji tried shooting holes in the fog with his AT field, but the hole never went far enough to spot anything, and it was always filled up just as quickly as it was evacuated.

Rei looked around, unable to see past her nose so to speak. "I'm in the same position. Wait..." The fog around her thinned to light mist, and then cleared completely, revealing a pixelated stylized mushroom with coloured spots. "Visual on angel confirmed. Exterminating." She readied her weapons, but suddenly the mushroom jumped towards her. Reflexively, she veered back into the fog and shot her weapon blindly, but the mushroom jumped into her, and her screen was for a moment filled with large bubble letters, reading "1 UP".

Maya registered a hiccup on the psychograph.

Ritsuko, looking at the main screen, noticed that the statistics said that the angel was gone. "Rei, you did it!"

Rei sat stunned for a few moments, then snapped out of her trance and and said, unassuredly, "I guess I got it..." She hiccuped.

"Maya, derez the space and log the pilots out. They can make their way back to the university building while I go over the logs." The information space dissapeared, and the pod doors open, letting Shinji and a stumbling Rei out onto the platform.

Shinji went to help Rei, who was wavering from side to side and tripping over her own feet. "I think you spent too much time in that pod; you lost your land legs." Shinji smiled as he put her arm over his shoulder, one arm grasping her other shoulder, and the other hand securing her arm on the other side.

"T-Thankooss." Her speech was slurred, and the boy wondered whether she had gotten memetic damage like last time. _That's when a part of her brain gets overwritten, right?_ He had never actually been briefed on what memetic damage was, so he could only guess.

As he more or less carried her along the labyrinthine hallways of NervSoft HQ, she did two things. One, she seemed to regain control over her body, which is expected. Two, she began to increasingly cuddly up to him, which was unexpected. _I wasn't aware that she was the type to take advantage of this kind of situation..._ She turned so that she was standing in front of him, an arm on each shoulder, her face just far enough away that he could see the whole of it instead of just segments.

"**_gam-e-dam gal-la-ni u di-dam_**" She looked deeply into his eyes, as if he was supposed to understand what she meant.

"W-Wha?"

She looked at him for a moment more, and then, tilting her head, she slowly moved closer and closer until she pulled him into a tight, formal french kiss.

As her tounge made its way into his mouth, he felt first disorientation, then a sense of euphoria and timeless connection. She broke the kiss, and repeated. "**_gam-e-dam gal-la-ni u di-dam_**"(_My genitals are marvelous_).

_Some day, I will take that tounge, and put contention into it._ His mind now blank, his disconnected voice willed itself a phrase. "**_Kima Parsi Labiruti_**" (_Treat her in accordance with Ancient Rites_).

--

Ritsuko was looking over the logs from her master console when she noticed a discrepancy between Rei's memetic signature during the syncro test and during the logout sequence. "Maya," She looked over to the young woman at the console diagonally below her. "Did you notice anything strange during the attack?"

"Strange? No, noth-- wait... There was a tiny blip in Rei's psychograph reading right when the angel was defeated. I figured it was probably just the shock of her first successful battle... W-Why?"

"Could you send me the blip data please?" Maya complied, and the woman looked through a statistical analysis of the data.

"Oh dear lord..."

"What?" Maya looked at her senpai apprehensively, knowing that if Doctor Akagi said something like 'Oh dear lord', there was certainly something bad afoot.

"Rei's meme was infected with the angel's virus code. Also, " she typed a little on the keyboard, and continued, "it seems that it has the ability to generate a physical virus version of itself, which can then be transmitted to others."

Maya looked mortified. "We have to find them, before they spread the meme!"

Misato took her cell off the table, and hit an autodial sequence. The phone rang once and then picked up. "This is Katsuragi. Where is pilot Ayanami right now?" There was a short pause, and then she exploded. "SHE'S IN JANITOR CLOSET 11-B?! WITH SHINJI?!"

The doctor typed quickly for a moment, and then said, "Misato, go grab them and bring them to screening room 2-A. Sit Rei and Shinji in the first two chairs, respectively, and under no circumstances should you let them kiss you or anyone else."

"Ryokai!"

--

Two heads sat in front of pop out screens in a large, almost empty room. Shinji and Rei were strapped in with makeshift binds of duct tape, and held to the chair in such a way that they could only see their respective screens.

The voice of Ritsuko Akagi came over the intercom. "Commence reloading from braindump."

A stream of familiar images came into view, flashing on the screen. Quickly, the pilots' state of mind returned to normal, and the memories of a few moments prior became vague and dream-like. Ritsuko entered the room unnoticed by its only inhabitants. The images stopped, and the screens popped back down into the desks.

Shinji furrowed his brow hazily. "What happened?"

Ritsuko startled the pair by her unexpected presence. "Rei was infected by the angel, whose code created a Sexually Transmitted Disease by temporarily turning on her 7th circuit of conciousness. She then passed the virus on to you." She paused, letting this sink in. Shinji looked confused for a moment, then shock overtook his face. Rei's face was black except for the emerging shadow of a smile. "I loaded yesterday's braindump back into your minds, along with some subliminal instructions to reverse engineer the angel into a memetic retrovirus."

Shinji looked down silently.

"Your memories will be a little hazy for a while, but they should come back within a few days at most. Do you need an escort home?"

Rei spoke softly. "No. That is not necessary."

"Okay." Ritsuko unstrapped the both of them, and they stood up. Shinji started leaving for his appartment, and Rei followed him. They walked together for some time, Shinji looking downcast and reprimanding himself for half-remembered sins.

"Ikari-kun." He looked up to see her standing still, stopped in front of the driveway to another appartment building. "This is my stop." He nodded, and she stared into his eyes for a moment.

She leaned in, shocking him slightly with her closeness. He felt the soft warm wetness of her kiss planted on his cheek. "Goodbye."

"Uh... Bye..." She paused a moment, as if to see if he would say anything more, but he was still shocked. She then quickly ran to her appartment building, and stood facing him under the overhang for a few moments, then made a small hop, turned, and quickly entered the building, now obscured from view.

_What a strange day,_ he thought as it started to rain lightly. He felt the tiny droplets ball up and accumulate on his head and bare arms, the june shower like a baptism, washing away now forgotten sins as he began to make his way to the sanctuary of his appartment building, a few blocks away.

**_Ana Harrani Sa Alaktasa La Tarat , Ati Me Peta Babka _**  
(_Road whose course does not turn back, Gatekeeper, open your gate for me_)

--

Ok, I got this chapter done. I think it came out rather nice, actually, but then again I'm terribly sleep-deprived right now. The Sumerian text was taken from a few sources. The Sumerian phrase uttered by Rei was taken from a transliteration of the myth "Enki and Innana", from the ETCSL. All other Sumerian phrases in this chapter were taken from the Sumerian Dictionary by **The Necrolord**. Links to the original texts can be found in my profile.

I'd like to give thanks to the music of FireStarter and 8bit Weapon, Nintendo, the Sumerian text links mentioned above, Red Bull, 5Hour Energy, Kickers Supreme Energy Pills, Ginko Plus Memory Pills, and Sitchin's "Planet X" theory. You accelerate me.


	7. Chapter 7

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 7

A/N: This chapter is going to be one in a series of very strange, plot-heavy chapters. That's right, folks: we're finally getting into the meat of this new genesis of thought I like to call "Omega" ;-). There will, of course, be heavy SxR... **waits for applause**... there we go :D... However, there will also be a lot of lain-esque confusingness that won't get fully resolved for a while. I'm also borrowing ideas from a few other fics to incorporate into the plot starting in this chapter, namely the cross-syncronization one by Marine Brother Shran and another (whose author I have forgotten) in which Rei hears the voice of Lillith in her head. Also, Asuka is introduced in this chapter, though I will make her slightly more agreeable than usual until the plot dictates otherwise. Even so, she'll be a lot less antagonizing than in the show/manga -- an extension of a trend with this fic to make the characters a little more mature and confident.

Disclaimer: I do not own Eva. And if you say I do, I will have no choice but to kill you and give your severed head to Hideaki Anno to burn in a secret Otakuminatti (Otaku Illuminati) ritual. Nothing personal or anything; it's just in my contract as resident Gainax Lizardman-for-hire ;-).

--

Shinji walked into the Konbini, expecting a familiar sight. More precisely, he expected a sight he had recently grown accustomed to: a mop of pale blue hair, and crimson orbs that turned to face him, and in doing so, set fire to his soul. Unfortunately, there was no such thing to be found in the small shop. His eyes darted quickly from their resting place at the counter (where she had always been when he walked in), to the magazine section (where she presumably picked up her sudoku), to the energy drinks (she had no reason to be there, as she always bought 5 Hour -- right next to the counter, the small white out bottles unrefrigerated and poorly sealed, like a commission-payed health inspector's anti-nerd wet dream -- however, he felt like a Red Bull). He began walking towards the cold case when his cell phone rang, 8 Bit Weapon's cover of Enjoy the Silence buzzing loudly into existence and filling his pocket with SNES-inspired awe.

He picked up.

"_Moshi Moshi?_ (_Hello?_)"

There was a pause. He could hear some noise in the background, and something akin to an American cop show playing on a distant TV.

_Probably a prank call..._ He was about to hang up when...

"Shinji! Get over here! An angel is attacking!" Misato's voice sounded strained, and slightly angry.

"Hai, I'll be there as fast as I can."

He heard a static-drowned reply and he hit big red and ran towards HQ.

--

He barged through the door, out of breath and wheezing due to slight asthma. His surroundings were so busy no one noticed him come in. The holo screens were buzzing with static and artifacts, and the speaker systems were making loud hissy crashes. Misato finally noticed his presence, and turned to him.

"Get in your pod, quick! Rei's been waiting to go in so she'll have backup, but the angel is screwing with all our electronics -- if we don't destroy him soon there's going to be another network crash!"

Shinji nodded, and ran to his pod, sitting down and unbuttoning the top button of his white dress shirt for comfort before activating his system.

"Ikari-kun, are you ready?" Rei's voice was soft, yet firm.

"Hai."

Maya's voice, barely audible above the waves of static crashing at every arch of the wave, came through the speaker system. "Rezzing information space."

The portal popped up, however the only thing visible beyond it was a blank grid. "These things sure like to hide, don't they?" He thought he heard Misato's voice, but it was clear and without static, so he figured he was hearing things.

Rei's avatar carefully approached the portal, but the boy stopped her. "I'll go in first, okay? Ayanami-san has been ambushed too many times already. I don't want you to risk it needlessly."

"But..." Rei was about to object, but quelled it. "Ryokai," she said dutifully.

Shinji stepped into the portal cautiously, and looked around. The angel was nowhere to be seen. _Another ambush?_ "Angel not confirmed on visual; continuing to look in preparation for an ambush, over."

There was no response.

"Do you read me?"

No response again. He turned around, facing the place from whence he came.

_Oh god..._ The portal was closing behind him slowly, and he could see Rei's avatar reaching towards it. He reached back, and their fingers almost brushed each other as the portal closed completely and the overlap of Rei's hand on the other side was derezzed.

Shinji drew back, and looked around him. Nothing but a blank grid in all directions. He didn't know where he was. _How far away from the base grid could I be? There should be teleport, but it's not working..._ Then, suddenly, he realized something.

_I should be in the pod, sitting in front of a screen. Ergo, I should be able to just get up. But I can't._ He looked around himself. _I'm not in front of a screen... I'm in this world. How?_ He looked at his hand, held upturned in front of him. _No keyboard..._ He looked around him, turning as he took in the nothingness of the empty grid, lime green lines expanding in perspective along imaginary increments, segmenting the endless black void. _What is this place?_

"Help me! Somebody, please, help me!" He felt the gridlines of his new and empty world spinning around him. He heard himself say, "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"No!" He screamed, at the top of his lungs. "How can this be it?! How can this be what I wanted?" He felt dizzy with nausea, and fell to the ground, hoping that soon the spinning would stop, mumbling incoherently to himself. "How can this be... How can this be... what I wanted..."

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He felt a presence beside him.

He looked up. _Rei?_

"Shiji-kun, are you ok?" A stray lock of pale blue wafted the zephyric currents of air conditioning.

The world came into focus. He was sitting on his bed, his pajama shirt soaked with sweat. She was by his side, standing near the night table, wearing one of his button down shirts. He looked around the room. Numerous objects caught his eye -- objects from his past, and mementos of happy experiences. An award ribbon from his elementary school science fair. Photographs of himself and Rei-chan standing together on the edge of a cliff, on a hike three years ago. Cartoonish figurines of cellos that his mother insisted upon buying for him off ebay. His siamese cat, Innana, sitting on top of the idling monitor of the Navigator PC he got for his sixteenth birthday and never had the heart to throw out. He turned back to crimson, setting his eyes on the deep void center. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What happened?" There was concern in her voice, and she rubbed his back gently as she awaited his response.

"Just a nightmare I guess."

Rei kneeled down in front of him and looked him in the eyes up close. "Do you want to sleep with me instead?"

He looked at her derisively. "I'm not a kid, you know. I just had a nightmare, is all. It happens to the best of us."

She looked at him sternly, as if she were Mesmer attempting hypnosis. "I wasn't suggesting that." Her face softened. "I get lonely sometimes, you know?" She bit her lip, and then continued. "We've been dating for three years now... yet we haven't ever been intimate." She saw the sudden tension in his eyes, and clarified. "I don't mean sex. What I mean to say is, we say we're dating, but we just act like good friends. We're both technically adults -- why can't we sleep in the same bed for once?"

_She's making some sense there..._ "You have reason. Just let me change my shirt, and then you can sleep in my bed with me."

She nodded, and he proceeded to remove his shirt, taking a clean one off his dresser and donning it. He got back into bed, and held open the covers for her, to which she complied. Her head on his chest, he drifted off, and the world blanked itself to prepare him for a dreamless sleep.

--

"Senpai! There's odd activity on Shinji's psychograph!" Ritsuko looked to Maya in acknowledgement, and called up the graph data.

"This is strange..." She looked at the data, not believing her eyes. "His brainwave activity is all in the theta range, remaining constant at approximately 7.83Hz."

Misato looked at the blonde doctor inquizitively. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Senpai... Does this mean he's fallen asleep?"

"Well, normally theta brainwaves are representative of REM sleep, but he can't possibly fall into that deep of a sleep so quickly..." She bit her lip. "Perhaps a hypnogogic state?" She looked to the pods. "Rei, what's the status of Shinji's avatar?"

"It's... It's gone. He went through the portal, and it closed on the inside while the outside was still open." There was a barely noticable tinge of hysteria in her voice. _Abnormal..._ The doctor decided to pursue this matter later.

"Huuga, what's the status of the angel?"

"It's gone. It seems to have moved to a different place entirely, outside of scan range."

Maya's eyes widened. "But... That's not possible... The whole of the earth is in scan range..."

Frames of glasses now being removed obscured the view of a mole as the left earpiece was chewed upon thoughtfully. "There is a possibility that Shinji destroyed the angel, but was memetically wounded in the process. But that doesn't explain the dissapearance of his avatar and the portal closing. Huuga, amplify the scan sensitivity, and use the better quality denoising algorithms. We can renice some of the other programs so that the MAGI have close to normal load. Shigeru, call to get Shinji into the hospital, but keep monitoring his brainwaves with the wireless monitor."

"Wait." All eyes were on Misato. "Will the wireless monitor even work? I thought there was major interference."

The bridge was silent for a few moments. Then Maya typed for a few seconds, looked up, and spoke. "It seems that the interference stopped at about the time Shinji went into theta mode."

"Maya." The girl looked up to her Senpai's face. "Investigate further the source of the interference, and patterns therein." She turned to face her old friend. "Misato. Call up President Ikari and inform him of the situation. Ask him to bring the spare pilot back with him."

--

The space was a dark expanse. The men, or rather their avatars, sat around the perimiter of a large, invisible rectangle, as if they were at a table. The man at the end opposite Gendou spoke.

"Ikari. We have entrusted you with not only the responsibility of the unconditional defeat of the Rakbu, but also that of the Planetary Instrumentality Project. We hope you shall not forget your dual regards."

A voice came from the side of the table. "Sou. Your 'organization' has successfully defeated two of the Rakbu with minimal damages. I am sure the Anuna-gods will be pleased." _I'll bet you are..._ Ikari fought to keep his face. "However, when the time comes that one of them is fit for initiating the Omega point, I trust that you will take advantage of that."

"Too true. The NANSHE.b and NINKASHI.m viruses lack the versatility to mutate into something with the power of EA.a. However, the Me signify that NINURTA shall be coming next, which should prove a bit more... interesting." The man smiled to himself, every bristle of his scraggy beard rendered in perfect photorealistic real-time.

A phone appeared beside Gendou and began to repeat a soft, mellow tone. "If you will excuse me, gentlemen."

"But of course."

Gendou picked up the phone. "This is Ikari... I see... I see... I understand. It will be done." He hung up.

"I am sorry Ikari, but the rest of this meeting is only of concern to us. You shall be disconnected now." Gendou removed his goggles and dermatrodes as the space faded from view.

"Fyutsuki."

"I see you are finished with your meeting. How are the old men of IGIGI these days anyway? Do they still pray to their beloved Anuna-ke?" The old man chuckled to himself.

"Their alliegance to a dead race amuses me. Perhaps when my scenario is complete I shall reunite them with their petty Gods."

"Ah, mercy... Perhaps too much mercy, to spare those who wish to be Nephillim."

--

'**_Negeltu._**' (_Awaken._)

The sun was bright and blinding, and in the washed out light, Shinji could see nothing but white and pale blue. From the pastel characature of his room, he sat up in bed, noting that Rei was no longer inhabiting the small, head-shaped depression in the pillow next to him. _I smell bacon..._

"Good morning, sunshine." Rei was by the stove as he sleepwalked into the combination kitchen-diningroom. She wore the shirt from last night, with a powder blue apron over it with "DEAD:BEEF:CAFE" written on the front. It was a nerd hangout in Arizona they had stopped in at on their trip to the USA to see the newly opened Area 51 site, before they had found out that the site they visited was in fact Area 54 and that Area 51 was a good distance away. "Yui-san had to go into work early today, since she has a meeting with some foriegn investors, so I figured I'd fix you some breakfast. Your favorite, bacon and eggs."

"Where's my father?" He thanked her softly as she dished out thick wads of scrambled eggs onto his plate, and then proceeded to fish out the scrawny strands of bacon from the other side of the pan.

"He's off with Kouzo, like usual. I hear today they're going to get some banners for your mother's surprise party. I'm sure they'll look ridiculous, two grown men trying their hardest to look respectable while looking for paper ribbons in a party supply store."

"Ah, I had nearly forgotten about that... The party..."

"That's why I'm here to remind you. Yui-san is a good mom to you -- she let me stay with you guys just so I could remind you of stuff like this." Rei winked one crimson eye.

Shinji, overtaken by her charm, paused for a moment. When he noticed the space of silence, he hurried to fill it in. "You're not going to have any? You could at least have the eggs..."

Rei smiled wryly and shook her head. "No thanks. I try to avoid american cooking and chicken menses when at all possible."

Shinji chuckled inwardly, and then asked, "What are you having then?"

"Oh, ramen for me."

"You eat too much of that stuff. You're gonna get malnutrition."

Rei grinned. "Don't worry, I eat plenty of veggies too. Just be glad I don't raid your stash of beef cup ramen too."

"Just eat some mouchi or something every so often. You need the protein from the beans."

Rei giggled a response. "_Hai, goushoujin-sama!_" (_Yes, master!_)

--

"It's a coma."

"What?" Misato looked at the blonde-haired doctor in astonishment. "You mean he just went into a coma, with no provocation at all aside from having just defeated the angel?"

"Not exactly. It seems that the angel jumped inside of him as he entered its body."

"I don't understand."

Maya piped in. "It seems like the angel itself is another memespace, and that it opened a portal to itself right in front of the opening we made."

Ritsuko continued the train of thought. "We believe that when Shinji entered the space, the angel entered his brain and redirected his sensory and motor functions into its own memespace, putting him into REM sleep and acting as an environment in which to run his dreams indefinitely."

"I see." _Barely..._

"There is also something odd about his brainwaves. Maya,"

"H-hai. His brainwaves seem to resonate at more or less exactly 7.83Hz. This is not normal behavior for sleep or a coma, because in both cases there should be more fluctuation."

Misato rubbed her head. "What's so special about 7.83Hz?"

A voice came from behind them. "Schuuman resonance."

All eyes looked to the shadowy figure in the doorway. Ritsuko's eyes widened. _Gendou..._

"I see you are making progress, Akagi-hakase. Keep up the good work." The figure turned to leave, but paused and looked back. "The spare pilot is waiting in the lobby. I shall be in my office."

With the commander gone, the doctor turned back to the bridge crew and continued, aided by the shadowy figure's innovative suggestion. "Schuuman resonance is a radio frequency in the theta brainwave range at approximately 7.83Hz. It is the frequency which resonates inside the ionosphere, and it blankets the entire planet with something akin to ordered static. There have been some hypotheses based upon the ideas of telepathy and Microwave Audio Induction that this forms the basis of subconcious telepathic connection between humans, aiding some of the social games with cues even more minute than those of expression, tone, and body language."

"Hrm... Then aren't we exposing ourselves to a possible telepathic infection?"

"There is very little threat of that."

"Why?"

"Because..." _Because roughly the entire city is immune..._ "Because although brainwaves are strong enough right outside the skull to be picked up by dermatrodes and EEG systems, they dissapate very quickly after that." _Now I'm contradicting myself... I really should get better at this 'lying' thing..._

Beneath purple bangs, a brow furrowed. "I'm confused..."

--

'**_Annu timatu wussuru..._**' (_Abandon this abyss_)

"Rei, did you say something?"

Rei looked back from her dishwashing, a puzzled look on her face. "No, why?"

"Nevermind." _I must be hearing things,_ he thought as she went back to scrubbing congealed lasagna off of a plate made for sushi.

--

"The plan goes like this." Ritsuko stood in front of a large white board, holding a nearly dead marker.

"You have a plan?" Misato smirked. She loved teasing the woman.

"Yes," the doctor said, trying not to let it get to her despite the twitch making itself apparent in her left eyebrow. "And it goes like this. Shinji is trapped inside the angel's memespace, inside of his own head. This space is a dreamworld constructed of reverse-engineered rules from his own mind, likely modified in a dreamlike fashion. It is what is called a 'cartesian logic set', essentially a universe derived from a system of logical rules with no conflicts between them. This is what separates it from a dream. A coma is similar, except that in order to get out of a coma, one needs to make the entire dreamworld unbelievable. All we need to defeat this angel is one minor logical conflict, which Shinji would need to acknowledge."

"How do you know it would only take one logical statement."

"Because his... I mean, the angel's mind is very logical... The details are complex, so I won't get into it."_What a copout... I'm getting better at this._

"So how do you plan on introducing this conflict?"

"I would have gotten to that already if you hadn't interrupted me, Misato." She paused a moment to let that sink in. _Guilt trips too... Wow, I'm good... _"The procedure is a little experimental, but..."

"Don't tell me it's surgery..."

"No, nothing of the sort. I was using 'procedure' in the more general sense. No, we are going to infect a pilot with a kind of memetic virus that is benign to humans, but that will weaken the angel. This is done by introducing a paradox into the pilot's brain subliminally, with instructions for it to spread memetically. Such inconsistencies do not bother humans for the most part, but they will weaken the logical fabric of the memetic universe. We will then insert said pilot into the angel's memespace, which we now know is located inside of Shinji's brain. To do this, we shall reconfigure the MAGI's space constructor to use the slight variations in his brainwaves instead of the slight variation in randomness. The pilot will become a part of Shinji's dream, and tell him the paradox. Once he admits that it is a paradox, the angel will self-destruct."

"And what if Shinji's having a good dream? What if he doesn't admit the paradox because he doesn't want to wake up?"

"At the same time, the backup will be waiting for us to find the angel's actual location in memespace. Once we do, said pilot will wait for our command, and if the other two pilots don't get out after a specified period of time, she will begin to fight against the angel there. Unfortunately, if she defeats the angel at that point, it is possible that Shinji may go into a real coma."

Huuga piped in. "Isn't that a bit risky?"

"We cannot allow a third impact to occur. In any case, he may wake up. If we don't do this, he will never wake up."

Misato sighed. "I suppose it's the best we can do." She returned to commanding mode, befitting of a tactical officer. "Assignments are as follows. Rei will be going into the cartesian logic thing, as she knows Shinji and would be better to convince him." She had a slight, barely noticable intonation difference on the word 'knows'. "Soryu-kun will be backup."

"Hai."

"Ryokai!"

"Good, get to your stations. Operation starts in ten minutes."

"Wait." Ritsuko motioned for the pilots to stop. "Before you do, I want you both to don something experimental we just hacked up. It's called a pod suit. It acts as a monitor for biological and cognitive functions, and it also acts as an assistive virtual reality input device in case syncro is low for any reason."

--

"I'll be right back."

"Okay, Rei-chan." Shinji lied back down on the couch and continued to watch the chess tournament on TV. _Oh, commercial break._ He flipped one channel up, and found the History channel was doing a program on Alan Turing and the WWII Nazi 'Purple' cypher.

He felt a presence beside him. He looked up. "Rei-chan? That was quick." He stared into cold red orbs, oblivious to the look of slight annoyance coming over her brow. "And you changed, too."

"Ikari-kun, there is something I need to tell you."

Shinji was taken aback. "Woah, what's with the formalities?"

"Formalities?" Rei shook her head, and continued. "Will you listen to what I have to tell you?"

"Sure, Rei-chan. What is it?"

Rei frowned slightly at the repeated use of that honorific. It was improper, but she supposed she couldn't blame him. "You are living in a dream world."

He felt a cold shiver creep over him. "What's that supposed to mean? Rei-chan is creeping me out."

"And another thing. What does this statement mean to you? 'Freedom is Slavery'." She stared back at him. This was not the Ikari-kun she remembered.

He furrowed his brow. "Uhm... Nineteen-eighty-four? I dunno. Is this some kind of riddle?"

"No."

"I give up. Tell me."

She was tiring of this quickly. "It is a paradox, is it not?"

"Uhh... not really?"

"It is."

"Nah, it's all pretty much explained away in the book. The idea is that the only way to have the perception of freedom is by having slavery."

"Admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That it's a paradox."

"No way. I'm right about this."

--

"Senpai, we have located the angel in memespace."

"Ok. It's about time... They've been in there for 20 minutes already. If she can't get him out by this point, I suppose we're ready to begin the backup operation."

"Ryokai. Opening portal now."

"Soryu here, portal rezzed."

"Are you ready, Soryu-san?"

"Yeah." _Piece of cake..._ "If you mean, 'ready to kick that angel's memetic ass'!" She added enthusiastically.

"Ok, proceed."

"Readying to fire all my weapons at the portal entrance."

"Go ahead."

"Firing..."

--

"Why don't you admit it?"

"Because I'm right."

A female voice came from behind Rei. "Oh, you have company?"

Shinji looked up. _Rei-chan..._ His eyes grew wide in horror. _Two Reis?!_ "What the hell! W-Why are there two of you?"

"Do you see now?" Pod-suited Rei gazed upon the brown mop of hair, his hands on either side of his head. "Admit it."

"No! I don't want to! I don't want to leave this place!"

'**_Annu cuupu napahu!_**' (_Break out of this cage!_)

"No! I like it in here! I like this cage! Don't make me leave!"

"There will come a time in which you can return, but it is not now. You must break free, if only to bring about a world that is true, instead of just perfect."

"No..."

"Who are you, and what are you doing to him?" The other Rei was still wearing the dress shirt, and Rei had a feeling that the boy had a bit of a fetish.

"This is a delusion."

"No! I want to stay here! I want to..." _Wow..._ He felt Rei's lips plant firmly on his own. It was just like last time, except now he could feel and remember it better. He let himself melt into the kiss, and after a few moments he began to break it.

"Now do you see?" She asked, as the world around them faded out of existence.

"Yes..."

--

"Yay, I did it!" Asuka watched as the false grid in the portal fragmented and the true grid was restored.

Ritsuko didn't have the heart to tell her that both Shinji and Rei had gone out of theta mode and back into very light sleep just moments before.

--

Shinji and Rei awoke in separate hospital rooms, and after normal checkout procedures, proceeded to walk home to their separate appartments.

--

Shinji walked into the Konbini, not sure whether to expect a mop of azure at the counter, as he had seen so many times before. When he looked, his hopes were realized. He stepped past an attractive redhead on his way to grab his habitual morning items. _She's up early._ He was in a good mood.

At the counter, the redhead who was directly in front of him in line put her purchases down to be scanned, and turned to him. "You must be Shinji."

"...Hai."

"I'm Asuka. Asuka Langely Soryu. And don't you ever forget my name, because I saved your ass last night!"

Two pairs of eyes darted instinctively to the items on the counter, and instinctively came to the same conclusion. _Monster Energy and Word Find... What have I gotten myself into?_

---

Ok, this chapter is finally done, after a rather long wait. I'm sorry to those of you who have been waiting patiently for it to come out, spoiled by my quick succession of releases of the past few. Luckily, however, this chapter I think has some meat to it. I believe it's the longest chapter on this fic thus far, and it gets into a lot of plot and (hopefully) character development.

Other fanfics I forgot to mention that inspired this chapter are the fic by Gunman in which Shinji goes into a coma, "The One I Love Is...", one of the fics by LADYTHEBEAST (a favorite of mine, though I can't remember the name... It has about 36 chapters, is rated M, and takes place in an AU where Shinji and Rei had syncro training instead of Shinji and Asuka).

Just general notes for those who are interested... DEAD:BEEF:CAFE is a joke on IPv6 addresses, which are written in hexidecimal (the digits allowed are 0-9 and A-F, so people often spell out simple words; ex: DEAD:BEEF:CAFE:CODE:FOOD:BABE:BOOB). If there's any detail in this chapter you want more info about, just message me and I'll tell you more about it.

I want to thank Red Bull, sleep deprivation, NECROMANCER's sumerian dictionary, and all the fanfictions that inspired me (to steal stuff). You accelerate me. :D


	8. Chapter 8

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 8

This chapter is going to get into a little more plot, and will continue the trend from the past 2 chapters of being very trippy and plot-heavy. I have the next two or three chapters after this planned, which hopefully I shall find time to write up soon.

---

Shinji's eyes opened into darkness, his pupils stinging from the bright poison of the lime green. _The grid?_ He looked around himself, seeing nothing but a segmented void, an endless landscape of black and green. No sky, no earth. No space, but that of mind.

He felt a presence, but could not turn. _I'm not in control of my body... _He corrected himself. _No, I am, but not this me._ He was instinctively aware of his interiority, that the being whose eyes he was looking through was himself, in some future time.

"Ninma... **_Peta Babkama Luruba Anaku ._**" (_Open the gate so I may enter here_)

He turned to see Rei behind him. She opened her mouth slightly and spoke.

"**_Ana Harrani Sa Alaktasa La Tarat  
Erset La Tari   
Harsag Zalazalag  
Sada Emedu  
Nise Matati Kisitti Qatiya,  
Zi Dingir Kia Kanpa!  
Enki zi Dingir Kia Kanpa!  
Nise Matati Kisitti Qatiya  
Kima Parsi Labiruti !  
Ana Harrani Sa Alaktasa La Tarat  
Ati Me Peta Babka  
Peta Babkama Luruba Anaku!_**"  
(_O, road whose course turns not back  
Land of no return,  
Peak which glows with brilliance,  
People of the land I conquered,  
Lord of the sacred earth, remember!  
Lord Enki of the sacred earth, remember!  
People of the land I conquered,  
Treat her in accordance with the sacred rights!  
Road, whose course turns not back,  
Gatekeeper, open the gate for me  
Open the gate so I may enter!_)

Amid a wash of flashing images, his mind saturated with data, the thoughts burned themselves into the retinas of his mind's eye. Tablets. Cuneiform. Literature. Poetry. Equations beyond the reach of man. Thoughts beyond the power of man alone. Wings. The egg from which all life was born. Thoughts saturated his mind, memes imprinting in the deep structures themselves. Colours. Patterns. Static, data without meaning. Static, data with meaning. The thoughts of all mankind. The beginning and end of all mankind.

'**_Negeltu._**' He was overloading.

Again. '**_Shinji._**' He felt someone calling him from across all time and space. '**_Maru Shinji Negeltu._**' (_Shinji, my son, awaken. _) He felt his senses returning from the numbness of overload. '**_La Adannu Basu._**' (_The time has not yet come_)

He awoke with a start, sitting up in his sweat-drenched futon with wide eyes and a pounding head. _What a dream..._ His mind idly tried to remember, but every time he did, he felt a migrane headache creep into him and the saturated feeling started again, so he decided to put it aside.

Realizing that he could not get back to sleep, he decided instead to make his morning trip early. He looked at the clock. _3:00 AM..._ He wasn't sure if they'd be open this early. _I'll give it a shot anyway._ He began to get dressed.

--

"Hmm..."

"What is it, senpai?" The blonde head changed angle to look at the source of the question.

She paused for a moment, wondering whether to tell her assistant what was wrong. _She's a smart girl; she'll probably give me some insight. Plus she's as loyal as a well-trained dog, so I don't think she'll do anything bad with the info..._ "It seems like the pilots' memetic infection was worse than we had calculated. Pieces of the angels have embedded themselves in Shinji and Rei's deep structures, so our existing cleansing methods won't work."

Maya's mouth gaped slightly for a moment, and then closed to allow her brow to crinkle in thought. "Do we have a cleansing method that _would_ work?"

"No, unfortunately. We use subliminal messages with retrovirus data in conjunction with braindump loading, but we still don't have access even to the long-term memory -- at least not with random access or overwriting -- and sublims only work in circumstances where the brain as a whole generally accepts them voluntarily, albeit on the subconcious level. There are reports that the US government tested a method that worked on the deep structures, but we don't have access to that data. That method would render the pilots effectively useless anyway, so it's a no-go."

"W-Why would it make the pilots useless?"

"Because it erases their brains entirely."

Maya looked down timidly. "Oh."

"I suppose the best I can do is get them some better supervision. We don't want this to escallate."

Maya remained quiet, trying to come to terms with what she had just heard. _The only way to get the angels out is to erase their brains entirely... What have we done to these children?_

"Maya, patch me into the President's office."

She looked up. "H-Hai!"

--

Shinji was not sure whether to expect the usual mop of blue hair at the checkout counter. Logic informed him that it was foolish to do so, but for some reason he had a feeling she was there. He put away those silly thoughts, blaming the strange dream for screwing with his sense of reality. _What a strange dream that was..._ He opened the door to the Konbini.

_Blue._

The girl turned to face him. "Hello, Ikari-kun."

"R--Ayanami-san! W-What are you doing here?"

She looked down slightly. "I awakened after seeing strange things in my sleep."

_Seeing things in her sleep... A dream?_

"That does not explain why Ikari-kun is here."

He looked up from his train of thought with a start. "O-Oh! I had sorta the same problem." He grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

"I see." She picked up her purchases and walked past him to the door. He turned instinctively, frozen as she left. Just as the door closed behind her, it opened again, propped with a foot. Her figure popped back in front of the door, and she held it open for him with her foot. "Join me."

"H-Hai!" He stuttered as he began to follow her out the door.

She took out her pill box, and opened the appropriate compartment. ' **_Ilati-Ina Ni Tur Sinnis Isu._**' (_That young girl has the aura of a goddess_)

"Did you say something?"

Rei looked up from her hand, full of pills nearing her mouth. "Negative."

'**_Maru Shinji Nahu._**' (_Shinji, calm down, my son._) Shinji noticed for the first time that the voice he was hearing was male. More precisely, it was the most loving and pathologically paternal sounding voice he had ever heard, despite the fact that it was speaking a language he had never heard before. In fact, that made the very fact that he understood what was being said very strange.

_Who are you?_

'**_Abi Mudutu Mudu Abi An Anzu Abi Tiit Shi Abi Gishtil Ziana Zi Dingir Kia Ilu-Baltu Sar-Gi Mudu Nusku Sar Mudu Nusku En-Sarri-Lu Baraggal Enki Basu. _**' (_Father of knowledge, one who knows; Father of the Heavens, and he who knows their secrets; Living father of the life-spirit; Holy spirit father of the corporeal; Spirit god of the earth; The god who lives; King of the earth; The knower of spells, and king of those who know them; Lord of the rulers of man; Most sacred of the sacred, Enki, that I am._)

"Woah."

Rei looked at him with a questioning glance. "Nothing." He went back to his thoughts.

_Great, now not only do I hear a voice in my head, but it thinks it's God. _It has been a long week for Shinji.

'**_La Sarratum Maru Shinji Sanu. Anku Anku Basu La Maru Shinji Anaku Basu._**' (_I do not tell you falsehoods, Shinji, My son. I am I, not you._)

"What a mind job."

Rei looked up. Her voice was very quiet. "You hear it too?"

Shinji looked up at her, barely hearing what she said. "Enki?"

"No," she said. "Ninma."

"In a strange language?"

She nodded slightly. "Sumerian, I think."

"Perhaps we have both been contaminated."

She looked down. "Perhaps."

'**_La Eme-Ina Nin Sanu. Qabu-La. Durzikru Anaku Nadanu._**' ( _Tell her things without language. Do not speak. I have given you a bond of mind. _)

Both eyes looked up with sudden shock. Shinji tried first. _Can you hear me?_

_Hai._

_Say something for me, so I know that you can hear me. Say..._

"Something."

Shinji chuckled. "I was going to suggest a different word, but I guess that works."

Rei's expression remained blank, but her eyes begat a mysterious look. "This should prove to be most useful."

Suddenly, a persistent buzz was heard, followed by the beginning to the 8-bit Enjoy the Silence cover. Both of them picked up their phones simultaneously.

"Hello," they said in unison. After a moment's pause, they looked at each other.

"I guess we'll be"

"Living together."

--

Shinji had a full load of classes that day, which he proceeded to ignore, opting to instead daydream in the back row and wonder if Rei would be angry if he started sending her random messages. The lights went out, and he looked up. _A projector._ As he was about to lay his head back down, he saw that the first slide was a clay tablet.

"**_ukur-re a-na-am mu-un-tur-re  
e-na-kin-na gu-im-u-rin-na-kam  
tug-bir-a-ni nu-kal-la-ge-dam  
nig-u-gu-de-a-ni nu-kin-kin-dam_**," He read. He proceeded to translate.   
"How lowly is the poor man!  
A mill for him is the edge of the oven;  
His ripped garment will not be mended;  
What he has lost will not be sought for!" He added to himself, "Classist bastards."

"You can read that shite?" Shinji looked over to see a guy about his age with dark hair and a tan. He wore a striped tracksuit and sneakers.

"I guess."

The man's mouth continued to gape slightly, despite his best efforts to keep his awe in check. "Where the hell did ya learn to do that?"

Shinji looked to the side, not willing to tell his new aquaintance that he had apparently learned how to speak Sumerian from a voice in his head that had come from a memetic infection and believed itself to be god, then gave him the gift of telepathic communication with the girl of his dreams. "Long story."

The man gaped for a moment or two more, and then composed himself into a rough semblance of an outgoing, friendly jock. "Name's Touji. Pleased to meetcha!" Shinji had an awkward handshake with this Touji person, and decided that the guy was really trying too hard.

"Shinji. _'Yoroshiku_ (_A pleasure_)."

"Say, do ya think you could help me study a little? I just don't get all this cunei-whatsit that they write in."

Shinji faltered. To refuse would be rude. He decided to take the most truthful route, within reason. "Sure, but I don't know how well I can help. I sorta know it, but I never really studied it formally."

Touji grinned widely. _Disconcerting._ "Self-taught, eh?"

"Sorta..." He smiled sheepishly.

Touji's grin widened. _How is that possible? He's like a cheshire cat._ "I was self-taught for a couplea years. I decided not to go to school, so I just taught myself from books."

"I see..." Shinji could see this boy had no idea of how awkward he was making this encounter.

"I hardly went out, except to see trains." He adopted a distant look. "The Old-Tokyo Railroad Exibition, January 8th to the 28th, 2015. It's hard to believe it's already been five years. Wow those trains were great." Shinji turned back to his daydreaming. "Oh! There was this orange and black one that was used as an ambulance train by the provisional government in World War III! Or was it II? Maybe I. Anyway, it had a special boiler attachment that..."

--

On the way from school to their new appartment, Shinji and Rei walked together, silent in spoken words, but occasionally passing ideas around.

_Oh, look Rei -- it's the new pilot._

_I see._

Shinji looked at his companion with slight concern. _Don't you think it would be a good idea to go over and greet her?_

The girl shook her head. _Why?_

He looked ahead of him again. _Because it would be polite._

_I see. Then shall we pro..._

"What are you two looking at?!" The redhead turned around quickly, and stood a yard or so in front of them. "You know, you shouldn't stalk coworkers. It makes for bad workplace dynamics."

"We weren't sta-- I mean, R--Ayanami and I" _Rei is fine, Shinji-kun._ "Rei and I were just trying to decide whether or not to say 'hi'. Isn't that right, Rei?"

_Say yes..._

"Yes."

"Aren't you two so intimate, calling each other by the first name." Both addressed pilots blushed hotly. "I don't buy it!" They both looked up, in questioning shock. "You two weren't even talking, so you couldn't have been discussing it."

"We are tel..." _Shh!_ "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. The last thing I need are apologies from a red-eyed freak of nature!"

"She's albino." _How did I know that?_

"I don't care what she is!" _You must have access to my memories now._ "She's a freak, and that's all that matters."

Shinji looked at his companion. _Seriously?_

Rei's eyes darted between Asuka and the other pilot. _Yes._

_Neat! Do you have access to my memories too?_

She shook her head. _I do not know. Shall I--_

Both were interrupted from their discourse by the third pilot's loud harruph. "If you two are going to ignore me, I have no reason to stay. I have places to be. Enjoy your staring contest." She started to leave.

_What was that all about?_

_I do not know._

---

Wow, finally done. This chapter is pretty long too. I added in some humour, unlike some of my earlier ones. I hope you enjoyed it.

By the way, if you read this fic, I'd like it if you reviewed and gave me some feedback. This is a risky fic to do in a number of ways. For one, it alters the Eva canon plot significantly. Also, it is both unusual and serious, which some people can be turned off by. Additionally, I am using a lot of obscure technological, mythical, theological, scientific, technical, and philosophical references, many of which are actually important to the plot. To top it all off, I'm trying to make it independent enough from the original Eva franchise that it would be readable to people who had never heard of Eva. In all these elements, there is a lot of risk for losing readership or causing unintended confusion. So, if you read a chapter, I would like you to give honest, constructive feedback. If you don't like it, tell why, in detail. If you love it, say what was good about it and why. If you have any suggestions for additions, things to incorporate, possible future events, etc., tell me them, as these things can be constructive as well. Also, although I'm going to have a lot more free time soon (I'm out of high school in a week and going to college part time until the end of the semester, which should leave me free to write most of the time until college starts for real next fall), you shouldn't get spoiled by the frequent releases I've been doing. Remember, the first three chapters were all release at least 3 months apart, even though there was summer vacation in between.

On another note, my sumerian sucks. I have only a very rough idea of the grammar, based on reverse engineering it out of phrases and their translations, so mostly I'm just guessing on the grammar based on what I do know and some intuition. If anyone who's reading this knows sumerian, or knows someone who knows sumerian, or knows of a website that explains sumerian grammar, please refer me, as I really want the phrases to come out right.

Anyway, on that note I leave you. Until next chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 9

This chapter should prove to be enjoyable, despite my lack of inspiration at the moment. Also a good one for research ;-).

--

The sun began to set abruptly as Shinji and Rei reached the entranceway of their new appartment. _402_ Shinji rang the bell.

"Coming!" It was a familiar voice, whose source was soon evident as the door opened to reveal a certain purple-haired captain clad in a lime green towel. "Ah, you two. You're early. Come on in."

The boy and girl looked at one another, then at the short sprawl of carpet just beyond the door frame. "_Ojamashimasu,_ (_Pardon the intrusion_)" they said in unison.

"Ehhh?!" The voice came from the doorway beside them. It was that of the red-haired pilot. "Don't tell me you invited THEM over!"

The companions looked at one another once more. "Don't be silly!" The captain was now, thankfully, wearing a bathrobe. "They're moving here."

"Ehhh?! You mean I have to be next-door neighbours with the baka AND the freak?!"

The woman ignored this, instead choosing to put up her hair. "Come on in. It's not intrusion, since you live here now."

"T-tadaima," said the brown-haired boy. Pale lips framed by lapis lazuli echoed her partner's sentiment as they made their way in...

...To find an absolute pig sty. _We really need to clean this place up._

Rei looked thoughtful for a moment. _It does not seem entirely unhygenic. On the contrary, I believe it's cleaner than my previous dwelling._

Shinji called up his partner's mental images, and sighed. _I need to send you some cleaning algorithms. Your XP is in the negative._ He chuckled to himself at the confusion that shown in crimson eyes.

The mystery glaze cleared itself and bright crimson shown true as the furrow in her brow made way for a slight wry smile. _You have reason._

"This will be your room, Shinji." Misato's metallic purple nail tapped upon a whitewashed door. "Rei's will be the one right across the hall."

"_Un._ (_Sure_)"

"So we shall not sleep in the same room?" Rei's curious eyes were met with twin expressions of confusion. "It would maximize space." She felt slightly unnerved by the continuation of said looks. "I do not have many belongings, and ergo do not require much space. Sharing a living area with Shinji-kun would aid in allowing for a greater quantity of general consensual living space."

_Rei. Quit while you're ahead._ The girl paused while she cautiously processed this phrase, then let out a soft self-depricating whimper. "Sorry."

Misato paused to think this over. "Actually... That's not a bad idea... Your reasoning has one flaw, however." All eyes were on her. "If you two sleep together, that will make it much harder for me to molest Shin-chan in his sleep!" Misato winked playfully, as the boy let out a willful sigh and the girl strove to process this new turn of events. _Don't worry, she's just kidding. _

She sighed a slight sigh of relief. _Oh,_ she thought, as softly as she could.

-

Shinji lay in his futon, silently parsing the events of the day. His few belongings had been moved quickly, though a small percentage had been either delayed or lost in the mail (so to speak). He tried to clear his concious mind of thoughts, a sort of meditation that would allow his subconcious mind to process the new data that had been presented to him, hopefully without the interception of his new God and mindmeld-buddy. He chuckled to himself as he jacked his oversized audiophile headphones into his antique SDES (Super DAT Entertainment System) ogg player, silently cueing up the new songs he had just downloaded. Just as the first softly plucked strains and chords of Stairway to Heaven graced his audio cortex, he fell into the depths of an inky deep and dreamless sleep.

-

It was near to the end of the night shift on a particularly uneventful night, following a (for the bridge personnel) particularly uneventful day. No tests, no angels, and not even a bug in the MAGI all day. Still, they felt the need to occupy themselves as they dutifully stayed the remainder to the end of their long shift.

Maya was being productive (or at least more productive than the rest of the crew). She was at NervSoft via a college internship, and it took away most of her time for work. In order not to fail the class she chose (what she initially believed to be a 'gut course', World Music Theory I), she found it necessary to complete the research for her final thesis. To this end, she chose to (illegally) utilize the MAGI system to research her topic of choice, now regretted, of peruvian folk music.

Matoko and Shigeru, on the other hand, chose to use their time in an entirely different, and from a certain viewpoint, less productive pursuit.

"Hey, Shigeru... You see The Graduate on TV last night?"

"Yeah man, a total classic. Too bad they had to dub it into Japanese."

"Oh? Is it better in English? This is the first time I've seen it, so I don't know."

"Oh yeah, totally. It gives way more of -- you know -- the director's vision."

"So I've heard."

"Yeah, but I may be biased. I've been an American Film buff ever since I took a trip to Cali during college break. First time I ever saw Pi."

Ritsuko looked up from her paper, noting the last word that she had read: _Simon_. "Aaronovsky, right?"

The man grinned like a little boy. "So you've seen it?"

"Are you kidding? It's the entire reason why I became a math major in college." _Well I _did _like the movie, but _that_'s stretching it a bit._

Matoko pushed up his glasses in mock comfort. "I wouldn't know" he said to no one in particular. "I've never seen that movie either."

"Oh man, you're seriously missing ou--" **Bzzzzzz**

"Senpai, the angel alert!"

-

'**_Negeltu maru Shinji, timatu ina_**' (_Awake, my son, from the deep abyss_)

_Rei._ The boy stood up, and hurriedly got dressed.

_Understood._

-

"Shigeru, status."

Shigeru hurriedly put his chair back into non-leaning position and typed. His eyes widened. "It's here. The predicted position in memespace correlates to this locality."

-

Blue eyes met crimson, framed by lapis lazuli in the void of the darkened hallway. In the distance, a lime green light burned, reflected in the window.

--

"We need to move quickly, or else third impact will occur. Matoko, ready the pods. Maya, call the pi--" All eyes looked to the entrance.

"Sorry we're late."

"How did you two know to come?"_Something just isn't right here..._

"Lucky guess," the boy said.

There was a pause, but it could not be maintained beneath the blaring weight of the angel alarm. "Nevermind that. You two, get ready for a sortie. Maya, make calls to the necessary staff, starting with the president."

"H-Hai." She pressed a number on autodial.

"Hello." A gruff voice came over the line, made more gruff by fatigue.

"President, there is another angel attacking."

"Then defeat it. This is your job, to be done autonomously without my intervention. Do not wake me in the middle of the night to bother me with trivial matters such as this."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Good night." A dialtone.

_Wait... didn't I dial the office number?_ Maya giggled slightly to herself momentarily before moving on to the next call.

-

"Okay, are you two ready to res the portal."

"Ryokai."

"Hai."

A portal rezzed before them, and Shinji and Rei breathed a sigh of relief. "Angel confirmed on visual." _At least it's not hiding this time._

What they COULD see on visual, however, was blurry and hard to determine. Then again, since when does an angel need to take a human-recognizable form? "Permission to enter portal?"

"Go ahead, Rei. Shinji, follow her."

"Ryokai." Shinji followed his companion into the portal, finding himself in an area of dark, pixelated fuzz approximating walls. _Looks like something out of Doom..._ The image quickly sharpened, and he found himself in a red brick alleyway, uneven, with cobblestone under his feet and a cold drizzle that he could feel down his back. There was a light fog, not unlike that of early morning, and behind them there was an antique streetlight. _Paris, perhaps? The old section. Or perhaps back in time..._

_Look._ He glanced towards his companion, and saw that she was looking ahead down the alley, towards a strange, organic shape, suitably lighted to stand out yet not defined enough to be distinguishable or recognizable. _The angel?_

_Let's go check it out._ They walked cautiously towards the shape, and it grew increasingly defined until she made out a huge unlit neon sign beneath a flood light. She looked around the base, seeing a mass of people in loose black robes, shrouded in shadow.

_What the hell?_ Then suddenly, all of the heads turned in unison to face the newcomers. They had no faces.

The sign sprung to life, changing shape quickly, flashing words, images, characters. Cuneiform writing came to life in spurts of firey red.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Shinji stood grasping his head. "NOOO!" The sign flashed the phrase "THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS" in bold red capitals.

"NO! GIVE ME BACK MY WORDS!" Rei tried to go to him, to help him, but she found she could not move. She was caught, ensnared in the eyeless, sightless gaze of the people in the black robes. Their faceless mouths showed invisible change as the words came in unison.

"**_Ikkibu idu_** (_You have that which is forbidden_)"

Rei formed words, but they were not her own. "**_Eme idu_**" (_We have language._) Her lips felt numb.

Shinji screamed at this, and the cacophony of his screams syncronized and resonated with the order of their words. "**_Eme ikkibu basu. Ikkibu nadanu. _**(_Language is forbidden. Give back the forbidden thing._)

"NO! NOOO! GIVE ME BACK MY WORDS! HELP ME! SOMEBODY, PLEASE, HELP ME!"

Just then, a voice emerged from the inky darkness, the deep throaty sound of infinite compassion betrayed.  
"**_Tiit basu!  
Gishtil tiit basu!  
Basu basu!  
Zi danpu kima Enki basu!  
Eme idu  
Eme-mudu basu  
Eme-mudutu isu anaku nadanu!  
Zikru nadanu nadanula!  
Ikkibu anaku nadanu nadanula!  
Ikkibu anaku nadanu nadanu ikkibu basu!  
Sabbatu-ina ikkibu nadanu ikkibu basu!  
Nusku anaku nadanu nadanu ikkibu basu!  
Kunuk Enki ikkibu isu!  
Anaku iqbu, qabula!  
_**(_I am the life!  
I am the thing that lives!  
I am being itself!  
I am the spirit lord of the earth, the great lord Enki!  
You have the gife of language  
You are those who know language  
The knowledge of language that is yours I gave you!  
I gave you the meme, give it not back!  
I gave you the forbidden fruit, give it not back!  
It is forbidden to return to me the forbidden thing I have given you!  
Until the end of the Sabbath, you are forbidden to return the fruit to me!  
I gave you the incantation, you are forbidden to return it to me!  
The forbidden thing is sealed by Enki!  
I have spoken, speak not! _)"

Just then, with the final words, a lime green light spread out from Shinji's prone form, the devouring flash consuming the void with the illumination of Knowledge. Upon seeing it, the faceless gained faces, each a unique expression of surprise and horror, followed by a look of euphoric complacency as the intensity of the light tore the flesh from their skulls and the bones from their body, dematerializing every pixel in the space. Shinji continued to be still, his face downcast as he hugged his knees and shivered down his spine. Rei, finding her movement restored, went to him and placed a hand gently on his shoulder.

"Wow, I don't know how, but you guys did it. Angel defeated."

_Shinji-kun... Are you alright?_ He looked up into twin seas of crimson flame.

"You guys ready to derezz?"

Rei bit her lip. "Yeah," Shinji called back. _I'm fine._

_I am glad._ Their avatars segmented into tiny shining dust motes, and their conciousnesses returned to their proper orientation inside their respective pods.

-

Misato, clad in her nightshirt, stretched as she walked into the dining room, yawning loudly. She spied her two new roommates on the couch, intently watching a chess match on the public access channel. "Hey, you two are up early." She glanced at the phone in the kitchen, her eyes attracted by a flashing red light. She walked over to it and pressed a button.

"Today, at twelve oh-three AM." Maya's voice emerged from a sea of static. "Hey, Katsuragi-san. I'm sorry to wake you, but there's been an angel attack. I need you to come down here ASAP. Shinji and Rei are already here." The phone went back to its normal, synthesized voice "Message two: today, at twelve twenty AM." Maya's voice came back on, clearer this time. "Katsuragi-san, this is Maya again. You don't need to come down anymore. The angel was defeated."

The captain attempted vainly to process this. Suddenly, a shock of red hair was visible as the front door was kicked down.

Two female voices were heard in unison. "THERE WAS AN ANGEL ATTACK LAST NIGHT?! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!" The two woment looked at each other for a moment. The younger one piped up first.

"Tell YOU?! They should have told me!"

"Why, pray tell?"

"I'm a pilot!"

"Well I'm the tactical officer!"

"Well they apparently did well without YOU!"

"May I remind you that they did well without YOU as well!"

Turning their eyes from the ensuing catfight, Shinji and Rei returned their interest to something that merited it: Chess.

--

Gah! I got this done finally. I didn't think I could get it done this weekend, so I was putting it off, but despite my lack of inspiration I think it came out well.

I'm going to attempt to do one chapter per week (at least), however I probably won't be able to stick to it for very long. I have chapters 10 and 11 mostly planned out, but then again, I had this one planned out completely in great detail before I even started planning chapter 8, and yet I got major writer's block on it. The moral of the story is, don't leave things in the fridge.

...Wait. Wrong story.

The moral of THIS story is, planning is not at all proportional to the amount of difficulty one has in actually writing the thing.

I'd like to thank sublims, my sound machine, Tears for Fears (their music is amazing -- the lead singer has about the voice I pictured Enki having), Radiohead (specifically their songs Paranoid Android, 2+25, and Climbing Up the Walls), and DarckRedd's fic "Dissonance" (I heart it SOOO much... after reading all 24 chapters in one sitting, I couldn't remember how to stand up for ten minutes -- that's how much it warped my mind). You accelerate me.

P.S.:  
In case you didn't notice, this angel was the meme representation of the song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. This song, it seems upon listening closely to the lyrics, is actually about a meme, so it fits.


	10. Chapter 10

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Chapter 10

I'm hoping that this chapter will be at least somewhat readable, however I am writing it in the middle of a computer science class I'm about to transfer out of (too easy), so it may be difficult to concentrate.

Also, with this chapter I may please any Asuka fans who have not yet gotten the hint ;-). Don't worry, though. I will continute to placate the rei fans who are, of course, my bread and butter :P.

--

The air was cool and crisp, but the fog that filled the darkness had a squishy warmness to it, like the mist from a hot shower on a chilly day. It was mid-winter, but there had been an ongoing pattern of strange weather recently, so the boy thought nothing of this. _Christmas is pretty soon... I wonder what Rei and I will be doing..._ He no longer considered the possibility that he and Rei would be apart at such a time. In light of recent events, it seemed extremely unlikely.

_Rei, what are you doing for Christmas?_ He whipped around the corner and into the entranceway of the Konbini, the door held open by pale hands and a face framed by azure. "I do not know, Shinji-kun." The man behind the counter thought this sudden continuation of what seemed like a previous converation to be amusing, and stared.

"Are you serious? It's coming up pretty soon..." He passed through the doorway, holding it open for the shock of red hair that had been following him from a distance down his course to the store.

"What are you two dorks talking about?" The playful twinkle in her eye showed that she was saying this in jest.

"Christmas." Rei's voice was barely audible.

"Ehh? It would have been fine if we were back in Germany, but over here it's useless to talk about it! It's commercialized to hell!"

"I wouldn't know." The voice was even softer now, and had a slight hint of newly discovered regret. "I have never celebrated Christmas."

"Ehh?" The girl looked in disbelief. "They DO celebrate it over here, right? I'm sure they do! They MUST..."

"Uh... Rei has had a... shall we say, 'sheltered' life." They had now bought their purchases and were heading outside, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Well, we'll just have to make sure this year she gets the best Christmas she's ever had!" Blue eyes twinkled, framed by auburn locks, quite pleased with herself. She paused as she watched pale lips envelop a handful of pills, and fingered a small plastic box in her pocket.

Reluctantly, she took the box out, cracked open her Monster, and gulped a single tiny pill, washing it down with oversugared taurinated goodness.

"You know..." All eyes were on her. "I'm sorry for being so bitchy to you guys sometimes. It's a... condition." She looked down, trying to avoid the burning stares she percieved.

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's okay, we've all got our problems." A slight smile of relief made its way onto her lips. "Actually, both Rei and I have Asperger's Syndrome... though Rei has it a bit more severely than I do." Blue eyes looked up through locks of orange red.

"I sorta figured." She smiled.

There was a pause. All hands fidgeted, the awkwardness taking over the converation. The boy decided to pipe up.

"I've been wondering..." He bit his lip before continuing. "They call these memetic entities 'Angels'... But angels are supposed to be messengers of God, right? Do you think... maybe these angels are sent by God too?"

The silence was deafening.

"What are you, stupid?! God is dead! Don't you know your Nietzshe?"

"...But he said that science eliminated the need for God, and that it was the Christian God that was dead! He didn't even touch upon the gods of other religions!" Blue eyes frames by a deep earthy brown tried to hide their embarassment.

A soft voice broke the status quo. "It is useful to note that our decks are called Evangelion, Greek for 'good news'. Specifically, this came to mean the 'logos', or the word of God. There are pieces of judeochristian texts that associate the word of God, in other words the holy books, with the diety himself -- that God exists only as the concept of God, and that by spreading the Logos, one spreads Deus himself. I believe this is what Nietzshe meant when he said, 'God is dead'. In other words, the concept of God no longer needs to be spread, as science eliminates the necessity for religion."

Two pairs of wide eyes shot stunned looks at her, then at each other. She continued.

"It is also useful in this train of reference to relate the mythic Tower of Babel, in which the opposite happens. Technology proliferates in mankind, and they seek to become Gods by it. God is angered by this, and strikes down man by randomizing his language, so he no longer can communicate."

Shinji, eyes wide, muttered to himself. "The infocalypse..."

Asuka's eyes reflected a similar sentiment._Mein gott... She's a fscking genius..._

Crimson eyes returned to their home position, meeting the two pairs of eyes that were wide in admiration. "It is a trivial observation." She looked down.

"Pfft." Crimson orbs looked, questioning this sound. "You shouldn't say things like that. It's not trivial." She regained her vigour. "To Shinji at least. It was really easy for me to get." She grinned.

"_Mou..._" Shinji sighed.

Just then, three cell phones rang. The three pilots fished in their respective pockets, and picked up in relative unison.

"Understood."

"_Hai_."

"_Ryokai_."

They put away their phones and looked at one another for a moment, then sped quickly to NervSoft HQ.

-

"Portal rezzed."

"Ryokai. Permission to enter?"

"Hold on, you. I'll handle this. You two take backup -- I've given you enough trouble already." Asuka's avatar winked one blue eye, and dove head-first into the portal.

"Hold on a minute... Asuka, who gave you permission to do that?" Waterfalls of purple hair spiraled wildly out with her head movement.

"My conscience." It was barely a whisper, but it was enough. "AAAAAHHH!"

All eyes looked to see what looked like a giant squid, glowing a dim neon pink. "Asuka, status report."

"It's a big one... It got me, but I think I've got it under con--AAH!-- control..." On the large screen it was visible that the red-haired avatar had been impaled through the stomach with a few of the tentacles.

"Asuka, we're coming in." Shinji and Rei readied themselves to enter the portal.

"NOO!" Just inside the portal, they were stopped by an invisible wall. _An AT field?_ "I'm gonna kill this thing myself. I don't want you two involved. You've already been infected too much. It's---AHHH!"

Shinji rushed forward, but was deflected by the AT field. "Are you okay?"

Through tearful eyes. "Yeah, I think I've got it handled." Mentally, she counted backwards. _Swei... Drei... Eins..._ "Gotcha."

The tentacle monster shuddered, and resisted futilely as it was sucked inside of the red-haired avatar. As the last pieces were enveloped, she was shocked back and forth a bit, finally collapsing, her AT field down.

"Asuka!" Shinji rushed forward, while Rei stood back, her hand crumpled to her mouth. "Are you ok?" He lifted her up in his arms. Weary eyes opened.

"I guess it worked..." She smiled weakly.

"What did you do?" He shook her violently.

"A little trick I learned in school." She winked.

_What the hell kind of school did you go to?_ A voice came over the intercom, excited. "Nice, Asuka!"

"I took the angel into myself, neutralizing it by acknowledging and dismissing every concept it brought to mind." _Meditation..._ She looked down slightly. "It's dangerous, but it was the best bet. After all, it was inside of me anyway."

A soft voice. "You are alright." Eyes turned to see crimson framed with azure. "I am glad."

The moment was frozen in the minds of the three, as their bodies dematerialized into the shimmering mist and they came back into being in their respective pods.

--

Wow... Short chapter, but a good one. I focused on Asuka here, but I managed to flesh out Shinji and Rei a little more too. I hope this had a little something for everyone.

By the way, the German counting was a total guess... The only German I know is 'Ich bin ein flatlander' ;-). Also, 'fscking' wasn't a typo; it's hacker rhyming slang (fsck is the rough UNIX equivalent to scandisk, and stands for File System CHECK).


	11. Chapter 11

Neon Cognogenesis Omega

Ch 11

---

Shinji had been alone for several days. This is not to say that people had been absent; Rei had been with him constantly, and there had been sync tests and morning energy drinks with Rei and Asuka, as well as come-ons and suggestions of drinking contests from Misato. Nevertheless, he had gotten used to the near-constant dialogue from God and the telepathy with his companion.

It was odd. Then again, his reasoning told him that it must have been at least partially a delusion caused by memetic infection, and that the disappearance of the voice of Enki would be a sign of recovery. On the other hand, the self-described Lord of Water had saved his ass on a number of occasions.

Perhaps it was not such a good thing.

"Shinjikun..." The soft voice came from the dark to his right.

"Hai?"

"I am cold. Roll over."

-

"President." A mole bobbed as lips licked themselves nervously.

"Yes, Akagi?" His cold manner did not reflect the approximation of tenderness that they had engaged in a few hours before.

"Your ex-wife has died."

For a moment, the room was silent.

"When did this occur?"

She bit her lip. "Approximately two weeks ago."

"The president of the world's biggest computer corporation died, and it had somehow been kept under wraps for two weeks?"

"It seems that Accela Labs has succeeded in perfecting Project Morovek."

-

"_Baka Shinji!_ (Shinji, you idiot!)" Shinji rubbed the sore spot left on his head with a silly grin on his face. Rei walked beside him holding the iced cream cone they were sharing. Asuka ran ahead and, stopping, turned back with a pre-victory smile. "This," she pointed, "is war."

"Are you challenging us?" Shinji found Asuka's seriousness amusing.

"Yes. Care to hear my terms before I crush you and feed you to the Grues?"

"Let me guess: a free-for-all Tekken tournament?"

"Yes. And the stakes are: third place must buy the energy drinks for first and second place for a week, and second place must call first place Master for two weeks. Do you accept your impending doom?"

"Nice wording." Shinji grinned.

"Thanks, I'm hyperlexic." Asuka bragged. "So about the doom thing..."

A soft voice. "I see no problem with it."

Asuka smiled. "Well then, two votes versus one undecided. Majority wins. Sorry, Shin-man."

"W-wait..."

-

The matte black table cut out of the darkness, the illuminated faces deep in meditation. The man at the end of the table spoke.

_**Dingir Enki annitu mala giru**_

_**Anaku eme-a kuppu**_

_**Anaku mudu-a kuppu**_

_**Me-me me-a na tsusumu**_

_**Udba dingir Enki nijal-am**_

_**Dingir anunake-ne lu-lu-a za-mi**_

Lord Enki, shining like a fire

Your words are trapped

Your knowledge is trapped

With our ME, bound

One day, Lord Enki shall not be

The men of the great ANUNA gods be praised

-

"Aww, man... I'm gonna go broke buying Wondergirl's little pep bottles!"

"You're the one who set the stakes. You didn't specify that Rei..." a poke, "I mean, that Master had to order something less expensive."

"I wasn't expecting her to win!" A persistent beeping was heard before the backdrop of Asuka's whining. Shinji located his PDA, and opened the new mail:

_Shinji:_

_You don't know me, but I am a friend._

_I am also a friend of Enki._

_It has come to my attention that a secret organization has been using sigil magick (an ancient form of memetic warfare) in order to bind d' Enki so that he cannot communicate. This would render you useless in the next battle against the Rakbu._

_Luckily, we have created an antidote. The attached PNG image is to be placed into your terminal's sublim stream._

_Good luck._

_Your mother sends her love._

-

_**Udba girru nijal-am maklu nijal-am**_

_**Lu-lu nijal-am dingir-dingir nijal-am**_

_**Mudu nijal-am eme nijal-am**_

_**Udba dingir Enki an-nu**_

_**Udba dingir Enki mudu**_

_**Udba lu-lu eme mudu**_

_**Dingir Enki annitu**_

_**Dingir Enki maru-maru za-mi**_

Once upon a time, there was no fire, there was no offering

There were no men, there were no gods

There was no knowlege, there was no language

On that day, Lord Enki came from Heaven

On that day, Lord Enki knew

On that day, men knew language

Lord Enki, shining

May Lord Enki's children be blessed

-

"_**Maru Shinji.**_ (Shinji, my son)"

_Welcome back._

---

A/N:

Hi, sorry about the wait. I've been busy with school and such, and having romance problems and large computer projects. This chapter is not the one I planned (I will be putting in another christmas-themed chapter (somewhat Asuka-centric) soon, but this is just an attempt to work in new intruigue/plot that I had lying around my head drive ;-).

Please review.

Thanks,

John


	12. Chapter 12

Neon Cognogenesis Omega  
Ch 12

-

_"That which is not dead may dreaming lie  
And in strange aeons, e'en Death may die"_  
- HP Lovecraft

-

_Hmm... Three days until Christmas... I wonder what I should get for Rei..._

_I can hear you._ Shinji sweatdropped, having apparently gotten far more used to the silence in his head than he had previously imagined.

_Bah. I'll have Enki pick it out._

_**Damiq dayyanutum-a maru. Igisum me mudu.**_ (_Good judgement, my son. I have just such a gift in mind_)

Shinji's face became flush with the suggestion. _Hey! I get enough teasing from Misato these days!_

_**Me gish-sha ni di-dam!**_ (_My phallus is wonderful!_) hummed an abnormally pleased Enki.

"Hey baka! Get your ass in gear and clean up already!" He glanced to the side to see his auburn-haired fellow pilot glaring at him dangerously. "And you'd better not look like **that** when Hikari comes in." Shinji looked down to find that his... 'private' parts were not only slightly erect, but had also doubled in size. _Enki! Now is not the time, okay. Sure, you're a god, and a sex symbol -- but if you're gonna 'endow' me, could you please wait until I have enough alone time with Rei to do some 'smiting'?!_

The ancient god replied with an uncharacteristic_**Bow-chicka-wow-wow**_, then continued _**Kashi arramu**_ (_I love beer..._).

_Great... The one time in my life that I have someone smart in my head, and he turns out to be a drunken pervert._ He tried to tune out the water-lord's botched attempt at singing a translated cover of "Louey Louey", focusing his attention instead on sweeping the floor. As he made his way into the kitchen, he saw Rei at the table, head in hand, with an uncharacteristic frown. "Those annunaki, eh?" he quipped.

She looked up, and gave a pained smile. "I cannot comprehend how a race of superpowerful lizards could continue to exist with this level of... appriciation... for alcohol, let alone pilot interplanetary spacecraft."

_**Luee lueee, o, o, ma me... WOAH!**_ Shinji and Rei felt a sudden jolt, as their gods randomly interrupted their drunken revelry, to be replaced by a very loud exclamation.

_**Me-e qablu**_ (_They are calling me..._)

-

_**EA! EA! KUTULU ESERU!  
EA! EA! KUTULU ESERU!**_

Around the matte black table, like darkness made pale by form, stood 7 monoliths. The chanting, however, sounded as though hundreds were in chorus. There, invoking the incantation forbidden by time and by the Me -- invoking it even on the forbidden day upon which the deed of which it spoke had been executed -- the sacred sigil of the crow's foot glowed.

And somewhere, deep within the Abzu, that same sigil glowed, and something that could barely pass in mortal eyes as a "being" awoke from endless slumber, still pinned by the sacred sword upon which the sigil of binding was drawn.

-

Surveying the room as he entered, Shinji realized for the first time how large a group their little 'party' had formed. It all started, he remembered, when he mentioned to Asuka that Touji had asked him to tutor the boy in cuneiform. A few days later, a young, nerdy-looking guy from his computer science class had seen him code in prolog, and had requested to be taught. Asuka, without clearing it with him, invited her new friend from university, a miss Horaki. Rei had no one to invite, but Misato, upon realizing how many people would be crowded into her tiny appartment, decided that snacks were needed -- and, being cheap, she decided that the best way to get snacks was to invite all the bridge techs and request that they bring refreshments.

To Shinji, the room looked exceptionally lively and uncomfortable. Each small group was speaking amongst themselves: Asuka and Horaki-san (Hikari was her first name, he remembered) were gossiping it seemed, Touji and the nerdy guy (Aida Kensuke, if he recalled) were debating about something as though they were old friends, Maya was slightly drunk and hitting on an entirely oblivious Ritsuko, and Shigeru and Matoko were arguing heatedly (judging by their occasional air-guitar movements, likely music). Misato was sitting alone at the side of the room.

To Misato, the party looked exceptionally dull. No one was mingling. There were no major altercations, or even joyful revelry. Everyone was simply talking to their friends -- staying in their own comfort zone. She saw Shinji in the doorway, and her eyes brightened slightly, before he turned around, revealing Rei. The two looked at each other and then walked away.

"Oh. Shinji left." Hikari looked slightly surprised, but then prepared to go back to the original topic of conversation.

Her preparation was in vain. "What do you mean?"

"He was standing in the doorway for a bit, looking around the room, but then Rei came and tapped him on the shoulder and they left."

The firey-haired german became angrily flustered. _How dare he..._ "THAT HENTAI!"

"I'm sure they're not..." Hikari cut herself off, realizing that her friend had already stood up and stormed away. She looked to the side. _Bummer..._

-

Shinji and Rei walked slowly down the hallway to their (now-shared) room, engaging in more or less meaningless telepathic smalltalk, when suddenly Shinji felt a hand on his shoulder. _What the..._ He was spun around, slammed into the wall, and...

Her mouth was pushed forcefully against his, taking him completely by surprise. The slightly open state of his mouth resulting from said shock was taken advantage of by the girl, while Rei stood silently, facing the opposite direction, trying to figure out what was going on. As Asuka pushed her tounge inside his mouth, he eyed locks of lapis. _Umm... A little help here?_

Suddenly, the girl pushed herself violently away, looking at him as if horrified, and then holding her head in her hands. "KYAAAA" she moaned, not daring to look at him as she ran away.

_Who are you?_

_**Arramu ilu-a etlu ilu-a dingir Innana sumsu basu Me sumsu-a anaku-e Inin basu**_ (_The goddess of love, the goddess of war; I am Lady Innana, but you may call me Inin_)

Back in the hallway, a recovering Shinji brushed himself off. _What was her problem?_

"I do not know, Shinji."

-

_Hey, Enki... I've never seen you drunk before. Why is it that you chose today to get wasted?_

_**Lemnu buidu baba kuupu shurupu basu**_ (_Terrible ghosts bound in cages make for an unpleasant coming of age_).

--

A/N:  
Thanks to all reviewers, and thank Goddess that I finally updated. I love this fic, and I wanted to finally get what I had initally pictured as a Christmas chapter into writing somehow, but at the same time I wanted to explore some ideas introduced in the last chapter a bit more, and introduce some new ideas that came to me much more recently. Not to mention showing some of the more... hidden... aspects of Enki's personality in Sumerian mythology. Yeah, he was a drunk. And no, I'm not making that up. And yeah, he was a bit of a perv too. That "me gish-sha ni di-dam" bit -- that was a slight spin on "me gish-sha za mi" ("praise be to my penis"), which actually was his catchphrase (the sumerian equivalent of "PWNED!").


End file.
